UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 


WORK 


PLAY  md 


LOVE 


WORSHIP 


BY 


RICHARD  C.  CABOT 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  MEDICINE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


45418 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

27  43       10 


COPYRIGHT,  I914,  BY  RICBASD  C  CABOT 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  January,  1914 


TWENTY-SEVENTH  IMPRESSION,  NO\'EMBER,  I922 


Ci' 


TO  MY  WIFE 

INCOMPARABLE  LEADER  AND  COMRADE 

IN  THE  WORK,  PLAY,  LOVE,  AND  WORSHIP 

OF  MANY  YEARS 


PREFACE 

This  book  has  been  written  in  many  Pullmans  and  in 

the  homes  of  many  friends.    I  fear  it  bears  evidence 

of  the  Pullmans;  I  am  proudly  certain  that  it  shows 

traces  of  all  the  friends,  —  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Philip 

^  King  Brown,  of  San  Francisco;  Bruce  Porter,  of  the 

"  same  impressive  city;  Maulsby  Kimball,  of  Buffalo; 

Professor  W.  E.  Hocking,  of  New  Haven;  Florence 

Painter,   Rosalind    Huidekoper   Greene,   and  Henry 

Copley  Greene,  of  Boston.  The  last  five  have  read  the 

'^entire  manuscript,  corrected  many  errors,  and  put  in 

many  improvements;  to  all  I  am  deeply  grateful. 

I  owe  still  more  to  my  wife,  whose  influence  appears, 

J  I  hope,  on  every  page.    Other  friends,  visible  and  in- 

>!  visible,  have  also  helped,  —  G.  K.  Chesterton,  Josiah 

*.Royce,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and  so  many  others 

J  that  no  title-page  would  hold  their  beloved  names.    I 

must  be  content  with  thanking  them  for  whatever  is 

true  and  absolving  them  from  whatever  is  false  in  the 

pages  to  follow. 

My  title  is  that  of  one  of  Tolstoy's  most  beautiful 
stories.  Such  use  of  his  words  is  quite  in  accord  with 
the  spirit  and  letter  of  his  beliefs  and  with  the  gratitude 
which  I  owe  him. 

Parts  of  several  chapters  have  already  been  printed 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  are  here  reprinted  by  cour- 
tesy of  the  editor. 


CONTENTS 

Introduction xi 

PART  I:  WORK 

I.  Work,  Play,  and  Drudgery       ....  3 

II.  The  Call  of  the  Job  as  a  Doctor  hears  it  ii 

III.  The  Joy  of  Work 21 

IV.  The  Points  of  a  Good  Job 27 

V.  The  Reproach  of  Commercialism:  Thought 

and  Action  in  Work 38 

VI.  The  Glory  of  Raw  Materlal    ....  50 

VII.  The  Radiations  of  Work 59 

VIII.  Work  and  Loyalty:  The   Idealization   of 

Work 65 

IX.  The  Rewards  of  Work 73 

PART  II:  PLAY 

X.  Playfulness,  Seriousness,  and  Dullness  .  89 

XL  Play,  Recreation,  and  the  Other  Arts      .  98 
XI I.  The   Popular  Arts,  the  Minor  Arts,  and 

THEIR   BioJBrOTHERS 106 

XIII.  Jewels 112 

XIV.  GiVE-AND-TaKE     IN     THE     MiNOR     ArTS     AND 

Elsewhere 117 

XV.  Trance  in  Play 130 

XVI.  Chaotic     Plays,     Disjointed     Plays,    and 

Others 136 


I  CONTENTS 

^  XVII.  The  Game,  or  Art,  of  Impersonation  in 

Work,  Play,  and  Love       .      .      .      .142 

XVI 1 1.  The  Penetration  of  Work  by  Play  and 

THE  Minor  Arts 151 

XIX.   By-Products  of  Play:  Consecration  of 

Play 154 

PART  III:  LOVE 

XX.  The  Allies  of  Love 167 

XXI.  Love's  House  of  Many  Mansions    .      .175 
XXII .  Our  Awareness  of  Infinite  Love    .      .181 

XXIII.  Symbolism  in  Love 187 

XXIV.  Loyalty  in  Love 200 

XXV.   Impersonality  in  Love 210 

XXVL  Integrity  in  Love 219 

XXVI I.  Reticence,  Modesty,  Chastity  .      .      .  222 

XXVI 1 1.  Imperfect  Mutuality  in  Love:  Romance  232 

XXIX.  Marrl^ge 239 

PART  IV:  WORSHIP 

XXX.  Spiritual  Fatigue:  Mountain-Top  Views  267 

XXXI.  Recollection:  Disenthrallment:  Soli- 
tude AND  Sincerity:  The  Reenforce- 
ment  of  Association 279 

XXXII.   Confession:  Petition:  Praise      .      .      .  298 

XXXIII.  Communion:   The   Answer    to   Prayer: 

Summary 314 

XXXIV.  All  Together 324 

Index 337 


INTRODUCTION 

In  the  spring  of  IQ09,  I  had  been  gnawing  away  at 
three  tough  and  ancient  problems  which  came  to  me 
through  the  Social  Service  Department  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts General  Hospital:  What  is  the  best  way  to 
care  for  the  tuberculous?  How  can  *' nervous  people" 
(neurasthenics)  be  restored  to  balance  and  happiness? 
Where  can  we  find  help  that  is  worth  offering  to  a  girl 
facing  motherhood  without  a  husband? 

A  vacation  in  England  that  summer  took  me  far 
enough  away  from  the  surface  details  of  these  prob- 
lems to  see  that  the  solutions  thus  far  suggested  for 
them  all  have  a  strong  family  likeness  and  illustrate 
three  stages  of  opinion. 

An  institution  is  our  first  idea  for  all  these  sufferers. 
A  sanitarium  for  the  tuberculous,  a  nervine  for  the 
neurasthenics,  a  ** Rescue  Home'*  for  the  unmarried 
mother.  This  solution  contents  us  for  a  time,  but 
further  experience  shows  us  how  limited  is  the  good 
which  an  institution  can  do.  Even  at  its  best  it  is  too 
artificial,  too  much  of  a  hothouse  existence,  to  accom- 
plish more  than  the  beginning  of  a  cure.  The  violent 
herding  of  special  miseries  in  one  place  —  disease 
facing  similar  disease,  day  in  and  day  out  —  makes 
physical  or  moral  contagion  always  a  danger,  sometimes 
a  fact.    More  individual  attention  is  needed  for  each 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

body  and  soul.  Mass  treatment  will  accomplish  only 
the  first  stages  of  cure. 

Personal  care,  then,  personal  teaching,  personal 
influence,  seem  to  be  the  need.  We  form  a  small  group 
of  consumptives  into  a  **  class.**  The  doctor  and  the 
nurse  not  only  teach  the  patients  hygiene,  but  use 
their  Christian  names  and  try  to  become  friendly  with 
each.  The  nurse  visits  the  tenement  and  tries  to  show 
the  poor  consumptive  how  to  carry  out  at  home  the 
sanitary  regime  of  the  hospital.  Personal  influence  is 
appealed  to  for  the  momentum  needed  to  encourage  the 
sufferer  along  the  barren,  ugly  path  toward  recovery. 

So  with  sexual  troubles.  The  reaction  against  insti- 
tutionalism  brings  us  to  rely  on  personal  influence  and 
personal  teaching.  Some  one  must  win  the  affection 
of  each  sufferer,  penetrate  the  intricacies  of  the  past, 
and  guide  the  future  better.  Not  alms  or  institutions, 
but  a  friend  is  what  we  hope  to  provide.  Not  material 
aid  or  mere  instruction,  but  one's  self,  one*s  best  serv- 
ice, seems  now  the  ideal  gift. 

But  though  this  is  certainly  part  of  the  answer,  we 
cannot  rest  content  with  it,  for  any  one  who  tries  to 
give  **  himself**  in  this  way  soon  finds  out  that  the  gift 
is  pitifully  small  and  weak.  We  soon  use  up  our  slender 
stock  of  wisdom.  The  appeal,  "  Do  this  for  my  sake,** 
soon  wears  out.  No  human  personality  is  rich  enough 
to  suffice  for  another*s  food.  Moreover,  in  proportion 
as  this  plan  succeeds,  we  perceive  the  dangers  of  de- 
pendence.  The  sufferer  must  learn  to  stand  upon  his 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

own  feet.  He  must  get  back  into  life.  "Real  Life," 
then,  as  we  now  begin  to  see,  is  after  all  the  best  teacher 
and  the  best  doctor.  Nothing  less  fruitful  will  nourish 
body  and  soul.  We  do  not  give  up  friendship  and  per- 
sonal influence ;  but  we  see  that  they  must  take  their 
part  with  the  other  sanative  elements  of  normal  ex- 
perience. 

For  the  neurasthenic  and  for  those  struggling  with 
problems  of  sex,  this  need  of  **real  life'*  is  now  pretty 
generally  recognized.  Seclusion  in  sanitaria  or  rescue 
homes  is  being  replaced  by  efforts  to  get  the  sufferers 
back  into  the  industrial  world,  back  into  family  life, 
back  to  the  surroundings  which  keep  ordinary  people 
a-going.  It  is  not  so  obvious  that  the  tuberculous  need 
anything  of  the  kind  as  a  means  of  cure.  Yet,  if  not, 
why  do  consumptive  doctors  at  a  sanitarium  like 
Trudeau  get  along  better  than  other  consumptive 
patients?  Because  (so  Dr.  Trudeau  once  told  me)  the 
doctors  are  living  a  more  normal  life,  —  they  can 
sometimes  do  a  little  doctoring  or  microscopy,  and  so 
forget  that  they  are  patients.  The  successful  progress 
of  their  work  in  sick-room  or  laboratory  gives  them 
courage  to  be  faithful  to  rules  and  to  force  down  food. 

In  three  widely  separate  fields,  then,  I  think  I  see 
a  similar  evolution,  away  from  institutionalism,  away 
from  dependence  upon  personal  influence,  —  toward 
a  plan,  the  essence  of  which  is  to  get  the  sufferer  back 
to  real  life:  not  back  to  "nature,**  but  back  to  the  best 
that  civilization  has  to  offer  to  normal  people. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Educators,  social  workers,  and  physicians  with  whom 
I  have  talked,  seem  to  agree  upon  the  following  mysti« 
cal  prescription :  — 


» 


REAL   LIFE  an  indefinite 

amount 


Take  a  full  dose  after  meals  and 
at  bedtime. 


But  what  do  we  mean  by  "  real  life *'  ?  What  are  the 
essentials  which  we  want  to  secure  for  consumptives, 
neurasthenics,  and  "wayward"  youth  of  both  sexes? 

Watching  like  a  Boswell  the  practice  of  experts  in 
the  healing  of  broken  souls  and  wounded  characters, 
I  have  noticed  that  besides  work  —  my  own  favorite 
prescription  —  the  experts  apply  two  other  remedies: 
recreation  (through  play,  art,  or  natural  beauty)  and 
affection.  They  also  hope  rather  helplessly  that  a  fourth 
resource,  worship,  will  somehow  get  into  the  sufferer's 
life. 

Out  of  the  dazzle  and  welter  of  modern  civilization, 
which  offers  a  hundred  quack  remedies  for  every  ill 
of  the  soul,  work,  play,  and  love  emerge  as  the  per- 
manent sources  of  helpfulness  to  which  parents,  edu- 
cators, and  social  workers  are  now  turning  with  con- 
fidence, while  over  their  shoulders  they  glance  wistfully 
toward  worship. 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

**Real  Life,"  then,  if  it  is  to  mean  the  nourishing, 
sustaining,  and  developing  of  existence,  demands  work, 
play,  and  love,  and  so  much  of  the  material  and  spirit- 
ual conditions  of  existence  as  make  these  possible. 

Though  I  came  to  this  belief  first  from  a  doctor's 
point  of  view,  and  as  the  result  of  search  for  the  essen- 
tial principles  of  healing  within  a  special  field,  I  have 
since  come  to  notice  that  the  special  groups  of  people 
whom  I  see  as  patients  are  not  the  only  ones  who  need 
these  great  medicines.  I  notice  a  growing  tendency 
to  center  all  remedial  effort  upon  the  same  trio  of  ends, 
no  matter  what  sort  of  trouble  is  at  hand.  More  satis- 
fying and  interesting  occupation,  more  refreshment 
through  art  and  play,  deeper  and  more  intense  affection, 
are  the  life-preservers  which  one  wants  to  secure  about 
the  blind,  the  maimed,  the  invalid,  the  discharged 
prisoner,  the  boy  who  lies  and  steals  but  is  not  yet  a 
prisoner,  the  orphan,  the  deserted  wife,  the  discour- 
aged, down-at-the-heel  family,  the  neglected  or  abused 
child,  the  alcoholic,  the  convalescent,  the  insane,  the 
feeble-minded,  the  morphinist,  the  boy  who  has  in- 
herited millions,  and  the  society  girl  who  has  got 
through  "coming  out."  In  genuine  emergencies  and 
for  those  overdriven  in  their  industrial  harness,  material 
relief  (food,  rest,  air,  sleep,  warmth)  may  be  the  first 
necessity,  but  unless  we  can  give  the  vital  nourishment 
which  I  am  now  advising,  all  material  relief  soon  be- 
comes a  farce  or  a  poison,  just  as  medicine  is  in  most 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

chronic  diseases  a  farce  or  a  poison.  Vitality  and  re- 
sisting power  are  what  we  most  need,  and  these  must 
be  created  for  the  sick  out  of  the  same  nourishment 
which  keeps  the  well  people  well. 

I  made  just  now  a  long  list  of  sufferers.  Did  I  men- 
tion all  who  need  the  essentials  of  real  life?  Obviously 
not,  for  those  who  are  going  right  need  these  life-saving 
activities  as  much  as  those  who  are  going  wrong.  It  is 
the  stake  in  life  given  us  by  our  work,  our  play,  and  our 
love  that  keeps  any  one  from  going  wrong.  The  con- 
servative needs  them  to  leaven  his  conservatism ;  the 
radical  needs  them  to  hold  him  down  to  solid  ground. 
Young  and  old  need  them,  for  by  these  three  principles 
we  are  helped  to  grow  up  and  saved  from  growing  old. 

In  this  style  I  was  sailing  confidently  along  when 
one  day  a  friend  asked  me:  "How  do  you  distinguish 
Work,  Play,  and  Love  from  Drudgery,  Frivolity,  and 
Lust?  You  have  made  saints  of  your  favorites  and  put 
halos  around  their  heads,  but  not  every  one  can  see 
the  halos  or  can  believe  in  them  upon  your  say-so." 

"True!*'  I  should  answer,  "not  on  my  say-so,  but 
on  your  own.  You  believe  in  them  now.**  Everybody 
sees  halos  and  worships  saints  of  some  kind,  though 
many  have  learned  to  hide  the  habit  even  from  them- 
selves. Work,  play,  and  love  are  my  saints,  and  in  this 
book  I  want  to  draw  their  lineaments  and  make  their 
halos  visible  to  others.  The  religion  of  work,  or  art, 
^d  of  love  is  not  the  strongest  or  the  truest,  but  it  is 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

a  good  beginning.  There  one  finds  outlet  for  devotion 
and  gropes  toward  God.  One  can  do  all  but  speak  to 
God.  One  fails  only  when  it  comes  to  worship,  which 
is  to-day  so  unfashionable  a  habit  that  one  must  be 
prepared  to  shock  the  modern  ear  and  to  violate  all  the 
scientific  proprieties  if  one  confesses  belief  in  it.  Civili- 
zation is  supposed  to  have  carried  us  beyond  the  need 
of  rites  and  forms  and  to  have  fused  the  demonstra- 
tive and  emotional  side  of  religion  into  daily  work, 
play,  and  affection. 

But  this  is  theory,  not  observation.  As  a  matter 
ol  fact  the  doctor,  social  worker,  or  teacher  who  be- 
lieves that  all  true  religion  can  be  woven  into  work, 
play,  or  affection  falls  into  the  same  fallacy  as  those  who 
think  English  composition  can  be  taught  by  weaving 
it  into  the  courses  in  history,  science,  and  philosophy. 
Experience  shows,  I  think,  that  vital  religion  and  the 
ability  to  write  good  English  are  not  acquired  in  this 
incidental  way.  Scientists,  economists,  and  historians 
often  write  barbarously.  We  must  practice  the  art  of 
writing  directly  as  well  as  incidentally,  else  we  shall 
duplicate  the  catastrophe  of  our  public-school  system, 
wherein  the  conscientious  effort  to  avoid  proselyting, 
to  abolish  sectarian  teaching,  and  let  religion  take  care 
of  itself,  has  now  brought  us  perilously  near  the  French 
secularism. 

There  is  no  originality  in  my  suggestion  that  we 
should  focus  our  efforts  upon  work,  play,  love,  and 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

worship.  For  though  we  talk  a  great  deal  about  "effi- 
ciency," economics,  hygiene,  and  other  matters  of 
secondary  importance,  at  bottom  we  all  know  well 
enough  what  we  need,  and  what  all  the  paraphernalia 
of  civilization,  money,  health,  and  education,  are 
really  meant  for.  If  I  were  not  persuaded  that,  in  our 
right  minds,  we  know  the  fundamental  reasons  for  all 
this  hurry  and  bustle,  I  should  not  venture  to  write  a 
reminder.  We  know  where  we  are  traveling,  but  we 
need  a  time-table  to  remind  us  of  details. 

I  do  not  say  that  every  one  wants  only  the  ends  which 
I  have  named.  He  usually  wants  fame,  riches,  wisdom, 
talents,  personal  beauty,  and  an  easy  time  of  it  gener- 
ally. He  may  be  too  sleepy  and  comfortable,  or  too 
tired  and  miserable,  to  want  anything  but  Nirvana  or 
release.  Yet,  enervated  by  heat,  calloused  by  routine, 
steeped  in  sin,  crazed  with  pain,  stupefied  by  luxury 
or  by  grief,  still  he  needs  four  inexorable  blessings. 

The  interplay  of  these  four  is  the  end  of  life,  and  the 
sole  worthy  end,  in  my  creed.  This  is  the  fruit  of 
the  *'life  and  liberty  '*  which  are  guaranteed  under  our 
Constitution.  This  is  the  goal  to  be  secured  through 
efficient  and  progressive  governmental  machinery. 
This  is  the  end  of  all  education  and  all  moral  training. 
This  is  the  food  of  the  soul  in  health  or  in  disease,  needed 
by  the  doctor,  the  social  worker,  the  teacher,  and  the 
statesman,  to  feed  their  own  souls  as  well  as  to  prevent 
and  to  cure  social  ills.  This  is  our  justification  for  the 
enormous  machinery  and  the  costly  ugliness  of  civili- 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

zation.  This  is  the  essential  of  that  "more  abundant 
Jife"  which  many  modern  prophets^  extol  without 
defining. 

Every  human  being,  man,  woman,  and  child,  hero 
and  convict,  neurasthenic  and  deep-sea  fisherman, 
needs  the  blessing  of  God  through  these  four  gifts. 
With  these  any  life  is  happy  despite  sorrow  and  pain, 
successful  despite  bitter  failure.  Without  them  we 
lapse  into  animalism  or  below  it.  If  you  want  to  keep 
a  headstrong,  fatuous  youth  from  overreaching 
himself  and  falling,  these  must  be  the  elements  of 
strength.  When  you  try  to  put  courage  and  aspiration 
into  the  gelatinous  character  of  the  alcoholic  or  the 
street-walker,  you  will  fail  unless  you  can  give  respon- 
sibility, recreation,  affection,  and  through  them  a 
glimpse  of  God. 

I  do  not  believe  that  evolution,  revolution,  or  de- 
cadence have  power  to  change  these  elemental  needs. 
For  all  I  know,  we  may  be  this  instant  in  the  position 
of  the  French  court  before  the  Revolution.  At  this 
very  moment  we  may  be  lurching  over  the  smooth 
bend  of  a  cataract  that  is  to  overwhelm  us;  but  if  so, 
it  is  because  we  have  not  enough  of  that  unchanging 
valor  which  has  preserved  us  so  far,  and  will  reconsti- 
tute us  after  our  downfall.  For  work,  play,  love,  and 
prayer  are  open  to  rich  and  poor,  to  young  and  old ; 
they  are  of  all  times^and  all  races  in  whom  character 
is  an  ideal. 

>  For  example,  Ellen  Key. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

On  each  of  these  gigantic  forces  I  have  particular 
designs:  I  want  to  show  the  sacredness  of  work  and 
love;  I  want  to  show  the  accessibiHty  and  the  univer- 
sality of  play  and  worship.  That  despite  our  secular 
habits,  we  are  so  close  to  worship  that  we  may  at 
any  time  abruptly  fall  into  it;  that  play  and  art  can 
be  closely  woven  into  the  fabric  of  work,  till  drudgery 
is  reduced  to  a  minimum;  that  work  is  our  key  to 
the  sacredness  of  material  nature,  and  that  affection 
can  be  disciplined  only  by  consecration.  These  are  my 
theses. 

This  book  has  still  another  motive:  gratitude  for 
the  good  things  that  have  come  to  me  through  work, 
play,  love,  and  worship.  Is  it  not  churlish  to  make  no 
attempt  at  hearty  applause  for  all  that  is  given  us  in 
this  world?  Grant  that  I  am  shielded  from  much  that 
makes  others  curse  God  or  nature ;  shall  I  not  praise 
my  side  of  the  shield? 

*'0n  the  19th  of  July,  1857,"  says  Tolstoy,  ''in 
Lucerne  before  the  Schweizerhof  Hotel,  where  many 
rich  people  were  lodging,  a  wandering  minstrel  sang  for 
half  an  hour  his  songs  and  played  his  guitar.  About 
a  hundred  people  listened  to  him.  The  little  man  in 
the  darkness  poured  out  his  heart  like  a  nightingale  in 
couplet  after  couplet,  song  after  song.  Near  by  on  the 
boulevard  were  heard  frequent  murmurs  of  applause, 
though  generally  the  most  respectful  silence  reigned. 
The  minstrel  thrice  asked  them  all  to  give  him  something. 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

Not  one  person  gave  him  anything^  and  many  made  fun 
oj  him:'  (The  italics  are  Tolstoy's.) 

There  is  no  sin  that  I  would  not  rather  have  upon  my 
soul  than  to  have  displayed  to  the  universe  such  in- 
gratitude. 

Do  you  say  that  the  universe  cares  as  little  about 
our  praise  as  the  ocean  for  Byron's  command  to  "roll 
on"?  Well,  I  vote  against  you.  I  believe  the  universe 
does  care,  and  needs  our  gratitude. 


WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 
PART  I:  WORK 


WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

CHAPTER    I 
WORK,   PLAY,  AND  DRUDGERY 

A  CAMPER  starting  into  the  woods  on  his  annual 
vacation  undertakes  with  enthusiasm  the  familiar  task 
of  carrying  a  Saranac  boat  upon  a  shoulder-yoke. 
The  pressure  of  the  yoke  on  his  shoulders  feels  as  good 
as  the  grasp  of  an  old  friend*s  hand.  The  tautening  of 
'his  muscles  to  the  strain  of  carrying  seems  to  gird  up  his 
loins  and  true  up  his  whole  frame.  With  the  spring  of 
the  ground  beneath  him  and  the  elastic  rebound  of  the 
boat  on  its  resilient  yoke,  he  seems  to  dance  over  the 
ground  between  two  enlivening  rhythms.  1 1  is  pure  fun. 

In  the  course  of  half  a  mile  or  so,  the  carry  begins  to 
feel  like  work.  The  pleasant,  snug  fit  of  the  yoke  has 
become  a  very  respectable  burden,  cheerfully  borne, 
for  the  sake  of  the  object  in  view,  but  not  pleasant. 
The  satisfaction  of  the  carry  is  now  something  antici- 
pated, no  longer  grasped  in  the  present.  The  job  is 
well  worth  while,  but  it  is  no  joke.  It  will  feel  good  to 
reach  the  end  and  set  the  boat  down. 

Finally,  if  in  about  ten  minutes  more  there  is  still 
no  sight  of  the  end,  no  blue,  sparkling  glimmer  of  dis- 
tant water  low  down  among  the  trees,  the  work  be- 
comes drudgery.  Will  it  ever  end?  Are  we  on  the  right 


4  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

trail  at  all?  Is  it  worth  while  to  go  on?  Perhaps  not; 
but  to  stop  means  painfully  lowering  the  boat  to  the 
ground  and  later  heaving  it  up  again,  which  is  the 
worst  task  of  all  —  worse  than  going  on  as  we  are. 
So  we  hang  to  it,  but  now  in  scowling,  stumbling, 
swearing  misery,  that  edges  ever  nearer  to  revolt. 

In  varying  proportions  every  one's  life  mingles  the 
experiences  of  that  carry.  At  its  best  and  for  a  few, 
work  becomes  play,  at  least  for  blessed,  jewel-like  mo- 
ments. By  the  larger  number  it  is  seen  not  as  a  joy 
but  a  tolerable  burden,  borne  for  the  sake  of  the  chil- 
dren's education,  the  butter  on  the  daily  bread,  the 
hope  of  promotion.  Finally,  for  the  submerged  fraction 
of  humanity  who  are  forced  to  labor  without  choice 
and  almost  from  childhood,  life  seems  drudgery,  borne 
simply  because  they  cannot  stop  without  still  greater 
misery.  They  are  committed  to  it,  as  to  a  prison,  and 
they  cannot  get  out. 

It  is  not  often,  I  believe,  that  a  whole  life  is  possessed 
by  any  one  of  these  elements,  —  play,  work,  or  drudg- 
ery. Work  usually  makes  up  the  larger  part  of  life,  with 
play  and  drudgery  sprinkled  in.  Some  of  us  at  most 
seasons,  all  of  us  at  some  seasons,  find  work  a  galling 
yoke  to  which  we  have  to  submit  blindly  or  angrily  for 
a  time,  but  with  revolt  in  our  hearts.  Yet  I  have  rarely 
seen  drudgery  so  overwhelming  as  to  crush  out  alto- 
gether the  play  of  humor  and  good-fellowship  during 
the  day's  toil  as  well  as  after  it. 


WORK,  PLAY,  AND  DRUDGERY  5 

In  play  you  have  what  you  want.  In  work  you  know 
what  you  want  and  believe  that  you  are  serving  or  ap- 
proaching it.  In  drudgery  no  desired  object  is  in  sight; 
blind  forces  push  you  on. 

Present  good,  future  good,  no  good,  —  these  possi- 
bilities are  mingled  in  the  crude  ore  which  we  ordinarily 
call  work.  Out  of  that  we  must  smelt,  if  we  can,  the 
pure  metal  of  a  vocation  fit  for  the  spirit  of  man.  The 
crude  mass  of  "work,"  as  it  exists  to-day  in  mines, 
ships,  stores,  railroads,  schoolrooms,  and  kitchens,  con- 
tains elements  that  should  be  abolished,  elements  that 
are  hard,  but  no  harder  than  we  need  to  call  out  the 
best  of  us,  and  here  and  there  a  nugget  of  pure  delight. 

I  want  to  separate,  in  this  book,  the  valuable  in- 
gredients from  the  conglomerate  loosely  called  work, 
especially  those  ingredients  which  preserve  a  "moral 
equivalent"  ^  for  the  virtues  bred  in  war,  in  hunting, 
and  in  the  savage's  struggle  against  nature.  For  in 
battle,  in  the  chase,  and  in  all  direct  dealing  with  ele- 
mentary forces,  we  have  built  up  precious  powers  of 
body  and  of  mind.  These  we  are  in  danger  of  losing 
in  our  more  tame  and  orderly  civilization,  as  William 
James  has  so  convincingly  shown. 

His  warning  is  echoed  in  different  keys  by  President 
Briggs,2  and  by  others,  who  fear  that  kindergarten 

*  William  James,  "  The  Moral  Equivalent  for  War,"  Memories  and 
Studies.    Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  191 1. 

'  LeBaron  R.  Briggs,  School^  College,  and  Character,  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  1901. 


6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

methods  in  education  are  making  children  soft  and 
spiritless,  and  that  all  sting  and  stubbornness  has  been 
extracted  from  modem  school  work.  President  Briggs 
quotes,  apparently  with  approval,  the  opinion  of  James 
Martineau  that  ** power  to  drudge  at  distasteful  tasks 
is  the  test  of  faculty,  the  price  of  knowledge,  and  the 
matter  of  duty.*' 

This  conception  blurs,  I  think,  the  most  vital  distinc- 
tion in  the  whole  matter,  that,  namely,  between  work 
and  drudgery  on  the  one  side  and  that  between 
work  and  play  on  the  other.  Work,  like  morality  and 
self-government,  differs  from  play  because  play  is 
spontaneous  and  delightful,  while  work  is  done  soberly 
and  against  resistance.  Nevertheless  we  work  because 
we  want  the  fruit  of  work  —  not  from  pure  dogged 
determination.  To  force  ourselves  along  without  any 
desire  for  a  goal  of  attainment  is  drudgery.  Work 
is  doing  what  you  don't  now  enjoy  for  the  sake  of  a 
future  which  you  clearly  see  and  desire.  Drudgery  is 
doing  under  strain  what  you  don't  now  enjoy  and 
for  no  end  that  you  can  now  appreciate. 

To  learn  how  to  work  is  so  to  train  our  imagination 
that  we  can  feel  the  stimulus  from  distant  futures,  as 
the  coast  cities  of  California  get  heat,  light,  and  power 
from  distant  mountain  streams.  In  all  work  and  all 
education  the  worker  should  be  in  touch  with  the  dis- 
tant sources  of  interest,  else  he  is  being  trained  to 
slavery,  not  to  self-government  and  self-respect. 


/ 

WORK,  PLAY,  AND  DRUDGERY  7 

Defined  in  this  way,  work  is  always,  I  suppose,  an 
acquired  taste.  For  its  rewards  are  not  immediate,  but 
come  in  foretastes  and  aftertastes.  It  involves  post- 
ponement and  waiting.  In  the  acquisition  of  wealth, 
economists  rightly  distinguish  labor  and  waiting,  but  in 
another  sense  labor  is  always  waiting.  You  work  for 
your  picture  or  your  log  house  because  you  want  it,  V 
and  because  it  cannot  be  had  just  for  the  asking.  It 
awaits  you  in  a  future  visible  only  to  imagination.  Into 
the  further  realization  of  that  future  you  can  penetrate 
only  by  work:  meantime  you  must  wait  for  your  re- 
ward. 

Further,  this  future  is  never  perfectly  certain.  There 
is  many  a  slip  between  the  cup  and  the  lip;  and  even 
when  gross  accidents  are  avoided,  your  goal  —  your 
promotion,  your  home,  the  degree  for  which  you  have 
worked  —  usually  does  not  turn  out  to  be  as  you  have 
pictured  it.  This  variation  you  learn  to  expect,  to 
discount,  perhaps  to  enjoy,  beforehand,  if  you  are  a 
trained  worker,  just  because  you  have  been  trained  in 
faith.  For  work  is  always  justified  by  faith.  Faith,  >* 
holding  the  substance  (not  the  details)  of  things  un-  ) 
seen,  keeps  us  at  our  tasks.  We  have  faith  that  our 
efforts  will  some  day  reach  their  goal,  and  that  this 
goal  will  be  something  like  what  we  expected.  But  no 
literalism  will  serve  us  here.  If  we  are  willing  to  accept 
nothing  but  the  very  pattern  of  our  first  desires,  we  are 
forever  disappointed  in  work  and  soon  grow  slack  in  it. 
In  the  more  fortunate  of  us,  the  love  of  work  includes 


8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

a  love  of  the  unexpected,  and  finds  a  pleasant  spice  of 
adventure  in  the  difference  between  what  we  work  for 
and  what  we  actually  get. 

Yet  this  working  faith  is  not  pure  speculation.  It  in- 
cludes a  foretaste  of  the  satisfaction  to  come.  We  plunge 
into  it  as  we  jump  into  a  cold  bath,  not  because  the 
present  sensations  are  altogether  sweet,  but  because 
they  are  mingled  with  a  dawning  awareness  of  the  glow 
to  follow.  We  do  our  work  happily  because  the  future 
is  alive  in  the  present  —  not  like  a  ghost  but  like  a 
leader. 

Where  do  we  get  this  capacity  to  incarnate  the  future 
and  to  feel  it  swelling  within  us  as  a  present  inspiration? 
The  power  to  go  in  pursuit  of  the  future  with  seven- 
le^ued  boots  or  magic  carpets  can  hardly  be  acquired, 
or  even  longed  for,  until  we  have  had  some  actual 
experience  of  its  rewards.  We  seem  then  to  be  caught 
in  one  of  those  circles  which  may  turn  out  to  be  either 
vicious  or  virtuous.  In  the  beginning,  something  or 
somebody  must  magically  entice  us  into  doing  a  bit  of 
work.  Having  done  that  bit,  we  can  see  the  treasure 
of  its  results;  these  results  will  in  turn  spur  us  to  re- 
doubled efforts,  and  so  once  more  to  increased  rewards. 
Given  the  initial  miracle  and  we  are  soon  established 
in  the  habit  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  work. 

But  there  is  a  self-maintaining  circularity  in  dis- 
ease, idleness,  and  sloth,  as  well  as  in  work,  virtue,  and 
health.  Until  we  get  the  result  of  our  work,  we  cannot 


WORK,  PLAY,  AND  DRUDGERY  9 

feel  the  motive  for  exertion.  Until  we  make  the  exer- 
tion (despite  present  pain  and  a  barren  outlook),  we 
cannot  taste  the  delightful  result,  nor  feel  the  spur  to 
further  effort.  The  wheel  is  at  the  dead  point!  Why 
should  it  ever  move? 

Probably  some  of  us  are  moved  at  first  by  the  leap 
of  an  elemental  instinct  in  our  muscles,  which  act  be- 
fore and  beyond  our  conscious  reason.  Other  people 
are  tempted  into  labor  by  the  irrational  contagion  of 
example.  We  want  to  be  "in  it"  with  the  rest  of  our 
gang,  or  to  win  some  one's  approval.  So  we  get  past 
the  dead  point,  —  often  a  most  alarming  point  to  pa- 
rents and  teachers,  —  and  once  in  motion,  keep  at  it  by 
the  circular  process  just  described. 

Various  auxiliary  motives  reinforce  the  ordinary 
energies  of  work.  Here  I  will  allude  only  to  one  —  a 
queer  pleasure  in  the  mere  stretch  and  strain  of  our 
muscles.  If  we  are  physically  fresh  and  not  worried, 
there  is  a  grim  exhilaration,  a  sort  of  frowning  delight, 
in  taking  up  a  heavy  load  and  feeling  that  our  strength 
is  adequate  to  it.  It  seems  paradoxical  to  enjoy  a  dis- 
comfort, but  the  paradox  is  now  getting  familiar.  For 
modem  psychologists  have  satisfactorily  bridged  the 
chasm  between  pleasure  and  pain,  so  that  we  can  now 
conceive,  what  athletes  and  German  poets  have  long 
felt,  the  delight  in  a  complex  of  agreeable  and  disagree- 
able elements.  In  work  we  do  not  often  get  as  far  as 
the  "selige  Schmerzen*'  so  familiar  in  German  lyrics, 
but  we  welcome  difficulties,  risks,  and  physical  strains 


10  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

because  (if  we  can  easily  conquer  them)  they  add  a 
spice  to  life,  —  a  spice  of  play  in  the  midst  of  labor. 
Work  gets  itself  started,  then,  by  the  contagion  of 
some  one  else's  example,  or  by  an  explosion  of  animal 
energies  within  us.  After  a  few  turns  of  the  work-rest 
cycle  we  begin  to  get  a  foretaste  of  rewards.  A  flavor 
of  enjoyment  appears  in  the  midst  of  strain.  Habit 
then  takes  hold  and  carries  us  along  until  the  taste  for 
work  is  definitely  acquired. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE.  CALL  OF  THE  JOB  AS  A  DOCTOR  HEARS  IT 

Most  doctors  have  set  a  good  many  women  to  work 
and  taken  a  good  many  men  out  of  it.  Doctors 
have,  therefore,  a  doubly  fortunate  opportunity  to  see 
what  work  can  do  for  people,  and  a  better  right  than 
any  one  else  to  speak  (if,  alas,  they  cannot  sing!)  of 
its  blessings. 

We  all  of  us  see  something  of  the  man  out  of  work, 
thanks  to  strikes,  freaks  of  fashions,  and  shifts  in  trade 
currents.  But  in  these  crises  it  is  the  pressing  need  of 
the  work's  wage  that  holds  our  attention  —  not  the 
desire  for  work  itself.  Because  the  doctor's  angle  of 
vision  is  different,  he  sees  another  type  of  suffering.  He 
sees  men  to  whom  the  pinch  of  hunger  is  unknown 
languish,  chafe,  and  fret  when  forcibly  removed  from 
their  daily  work.  I  recall  the  illness  of  an  old  stage- 
driver.  He  had  no  need  to  work.  His  children  were 
eager  and  willing  to  supply  his  wants.  But  despite 
good  medical  care  he  would  not  or  could  not  conva- 
lesce till  his  sons  lifted  him  into  his  wagon-seat  and  put 
"the  lines"  into  his  feeble  hands.  Then  you  could  see 
him  gain  every  day. 

In  an  old  man,  shaped  and  warped  by  his  work 
through  seventy  years,  this  tug  of  habit  is  perhaps  only 
natural.  But  such  habits  of  work  are  often  early  formed. 


12  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

The  schoolboy  usually  wants  to  get  back  to  school  as 
fast  as  he  can  after  an  illness,  and  if  he  finds  some- 
thing besides  pure  work  to  attract  him  in  school,  he  is 
like  his  elders  in  this  also.  For  work  is  seldom  "pure," 
—  rarely  separated  or  shut  away  from  the  other  ele- 
ments of  sociability,  exciting  variety  and  fun. 
i  I  want  to  set  down  what  I  can  of  the  good  which 
I  have  seen  accomplished  by  work  for  two  classes 
of  people :  —  for  men  temporarily  deprived  of  it,  and 
for  women  who  are  experiencing  its  rewards  for  the 
first  time. 

Many  times  I  have  seen  work  pull  people  out  of  the 
misery  of  a  self -centered  existence.  Without  work  many 
a  woman  has  thought  herself  fundamentally  selfish,  or 
if  she  was  not  so  rough  with  herself,  her  relations  have 
vented  a  similar  lament.    For  almost  all  people  think , 
about  themselves  when  they  are  not  enticed  by  the  i 
call  of  the  world's  work  into  thinking  of  something 
else.  To  get  busy  is  the  way  out  of  most  cases  of  self- 
centeredness.  We  are  like  wells.  When  our  life  is  full, 
the  dregs  of  shallow  selfishness  at  the  bottom  do  not 
often  rise  to  consciousness.    But  when  we  are  empty, 
our  selfishness  is  necessarily  exposed,  and  we  are  to  \ 
blame  only  if  we  have  made  no  effort  to  fill  up  the 
aching  void  with  what  we  know  belongs  there,  — 
especially  work. 

^    The  nervous  sufferer  or  the  chronic  invalid  is  often 
no  more  to  blame  for  his  selfishness  than  for  the  piti- 


i 

1 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  JOB  13 

ful  meagemess  of  his  muscles.  The  long  and  the  short 
of  it  is,  he  is  not  nourished;  his  vitality  has  been 
emptied  out.  Till  he  gets  back  into  life  he  cannot  help 
staring  at  the  four  blank  walls  of  his  nairrow  self.  But 
to  get  back  into  life,  or  to  get  into  it  for  the  first  time 
(as  many  women  have  to)  is  practically  what  work 
means.  For  the  world  is  primarily  a  working  world. 
From  the  insects  to  the  angels,  creation  hums  with 
work,  and  through  work  fits  us  for  play. 

Idleness  is  corrosive.  Human  energies,  like  human 
stomachs,  turn  inward  perversely  and  self-destructively 
if  they  have  not  material  to  work  on.  Deprived  of  work, 
people  exhaust  themselves  like  crazed  animals  beating 
against  their  bars,  even  when  the  cage  is  of  their  own 
making.  fThoughts,  that  should  run  out  in  path-finding, 
path-making  labor,  circle  round  and  round  within  the 
mind,  till  it  is  dizzy  and  all  distinctions  are  blurred^  By 
work  you  straighten  out  such  cramped  and  twisted 
energies,  as  you  shake  out  a  reefed  sail. 

Healthy  people  deprived  of  the  outlet  and  stimulus 
of  work  are  in  danger  of  getting  into  one  or  another 
sexual  muddle.  For  we  are  many  of  us  creatures  who 
can  be  purified  only  by  motion,  as  the  running  stream 
drops  out  its  pollutions  when  its  current  grows  swift, 
but  gets  defiled  as  soon  as  it  stagnates  in  shallows. 
Consciousness,  if  not  kept  fully  occupied  with  its  proper 
business,  is  pretty  sure  to  upset  the  whole  human  ma- 
chine by  turning  its  light  on  what  ought  to  be  in  dark 


14  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

unconsciousness.  A  person  is  normally  unconscious  of 
his  eyes,  of  his  heart's  action,  of  his  stomach,  his  in- 
testines, and  all  the  rest  of  his  separate  and  serviceable 
organs^  But  the  moment  consciousness  gets  focused 
on  any  one  bit  of  the  human  body,  we  get  disaster  like 
to  that  of  the  dancer  who  becomes  conscious  of  his  feet. 
He  becomes,  as  we  mistakenly  say,  *' self-conscious.** 
We  mean  that  he  is  narrowly  and  painfully  conscious 
of  a  very  small  piece  of  himself,  and  forgetful  of  a 
very  much  larger  area.  A  workingman*s  "self"  is  the 
whole  milieUy  the  whole  ''proposition"  in  which  he  is 
normally  engaged.  Because  he  is  the  engineer  of  his 
train,  the  policeman  of  his  beat,  his  "self"  is  enriched 
and  employed  by  the  extent,  the  variety,  the  dignity 
and  worth  of  his  job.  The  awareness  of  his  separate 
organs  and  functions,  a  torture  to  him  in  idleness,  van- 
ishes as  soon  as  he  gets  actively  busy. 

But  sedentary  and  emotional  occupations  are  im- 
possible for  some  people  because  of  the  sexual  tension 
which  they  tend  to  produce.  One  of  the  justifications 
of  the  apparently  wasteful  and  unintelligent  "hus- 
tling" in  our  modem  world  is  here.  What  Tolstoj 
seeks  to  accomplish  on  his  country  estate  by  exhaust- 
ing labor  out  of  doors,  the  city  man  brings  to  pass  by 
rushing  and  hurrying  about  like  a  June-bug.  He 
works  off  superabundant  energy  in  irrational  ways, 
because  he  is  not  bright  enough  to  work  it  off  other- 
wise. But  it  is  surely  a  good  thing  to  work  it  off 
somehow. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  JOB  15 

Work  dispels  discouragement  because  it  turns  con- 
sciousness away  from  our  disheartening  littleness  and 
lights  up  the  big  world  —  our  world  —  of  possible 
achievement.  Consciousness  cannot  voluntarily  ex- 
tinguish itself.  Its  light  must  beat  upon  the  inner  walls 
of  our  narrow  self  and  illumine  them  with  an  unnatural 
glare  unless  we  have  windows  into  the  world's  great  in- j 
terests.  Through  these  consciousness  can  escape.  With- 
out them  it  is  turned  upon  itself.  There  is  no  fault 
in  that.  The  self-centeredness  of  the  invalid,  of  the 
man  out  of  work,  or  of  the  rich  female  loafer  is  a  nec- 
essary consequence  of  the  fact  that  consciousness,  like  a 
lighted  lamp,  must  illumine  something.  It  will  hit  with 
false  intensity  on  the  nearest  thing  if  outlets  are  cut  off. 

Now  that  "nearest  thing"  in  the  case  of  conscious- 
ness is  our  own  bodies :  —  hence  the  bodily  miseries, 
the  over-sensitiveness  and  the  squeamishness  of  the 
idle.  The  next  "nearest  thing  "  is  our  poor  scanty  outfit 
of  powers  and  virtues.  Small  and  cheap  they  look  in 
their  naked  isolation,  and  the  one  big  thing  that  they 
can  produce  is  shadows.  The  shadow  of  whatever  is 
crowded  up  close  to  the  light  of  consciousness  is  big 
enough  to  blacken  the  whole  world.  Hence  discourage- 
ment is  a  natural  and  blameless  consequence  when 
idleness  blocks  the  light  of  consciousness.  To  be  idle 
is  to  be  shut  in,  and  in  such  confinement  one  feels 
powerless  and  insignificant. 

The  platform  speaker  whose  audience  is  deserting 
him  hears  his  own  voice  pronouncing  words  which 


i6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

hitherto  have  sounded  valuable  and  potent;  —  now 
they  seem  tawdry  and  foolish.  He  has  been  left  high 
and  dry,  alone  with  his  naked  self.  Before  the  exodus 
he  had  courage  because  he  could  lose  himself  in  his 
subject.  He  had  an  audience  and  a  message  for  them. 
They  clothed  him,  dignified  him,  gave  worth  to  his 
vocal  gymnastics  and  meaning  to  his  oratorical  labors. 
But  without  the  response  of  his  audience  he  is  merely 
a  voice,  a  ghost  haunting  a  world  that  has  forgotten  him. 
,  Work  gives  every  man  an  audience  and  a  message. 
Through  work  his  personality,  small  enough  in  itself, 
gets  out  of  itself  and  acquires  a  strange  and  blessed 
ownership  of  fruitful  soil.  For  his  job  certainly  belongs 
to  him  in  some  sense.  It  is  his  spiritual  property,  and 
thus,  like  all  property,  it  gives  courage  because  it  en- 
riches personality.  Deprived  of  work  and  its  comrade- 
ship, we  are  lonely  and  therefore  discouraged,  for  lone- 
liness is  so  close  to  discouragement  that  it  is  hard  to 
slip  the  knife-blade  of  a  definition  between  them. 

To  find  one's  work  is  to  find  one's  place  in  the  world. 
Most  discouragement  means  homelessness;  when  down- 
cast there  seems  to  be  no  place  for  us  in  the  world. 
Everybody  else  seems  to  be  needed  and  to  belong 
somewhere.  But  in  idleness  no  one  is  needed.  Idly  to 
watch  the  busy  people  in  one's  own  country  or  abroad 
is  a  heart-breaking  business.  Hence  prolonged  travel 
is  bearable  only  if  one  adopts  some  plan  of  work,  makes 
a  business  of  sight-seeing,  or  in  some  other  way  earn  ) 
every  day  one's  appreciable  share  of  knowledge. 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  JOB  17 

I  have  said  that  a  job  is  a  special  form  of  property. 
One  gets  a  right  to  it,  as  to  any  form  of  property,  in  pro- 
portion as  one  works  it  up,  by  making  it  fruitful  for 
some  community,  visible  or  invisible.  The  scientific 
investigator,  the  inventor,  the  unappreciated  artist, 
the  martyr,  works  for  an  invisible  community  not  yet 
bom,  or  hidden  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth  or  else- 
where. If  he  escapes  discouragement,  it  is  because  he 
has  learned  to  see  an  audience  invisible  to  others. 
Without  this  he  is  hopeless.  Whoever  is  forced  to  work 
where  he  cannot  see  with  the  spirit's  sense  this  invisible 
community  and  cannot  "paint  the  thing  as  he  sees  it 
for  the  God  of  things  as  they  are,"  becomes  disheart* 
ened  and  may  have  to  seek  some  smaller  but  more  tan- 
gible piece  of  property,  some  task  bringing  with  it  an 
heartening  social  recognition. 

Courage  for  life,  then,  comes  when  one  gets  out  of 
isolation,  owns,  surveys,  and  fences  in  a  bit  of  the 
uncharted  world.  Such  a  place-in-the-world  is  a  job. 
It  matters  little  whether  others  see  it  or  not,  but  if  you 
cannot  see  it  yourself,  you  are  lost  in  the  wilderness. 
The  courage  given  us  by  our  work  is  like  the  self-re- 
liance which  Emerson  has  made  forever  glorious.  Like 
self-reliance,  courage  is  ultimately  a  reliance  on  widen- 
ing cbncentric  circles  of  property  which  reach  to  God. 

As  a  physician  I  have  had  the  happiness  of  seeing 
work  cure  many  persons  who  have  suffered  from  that 
trembling  palsy  of  the  soul  which  results  from  over- 


i8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

mastering  doubts,  hesitation,  vacillation,  and  fear. 
Work  often  cures  this  kind  of  skepticism  (*' solvitur 
ambulando**)f  which  is  not  thinking  but  worry.  It 
comes  from  thinking  in  a  circle  instead  of  thinking 
straight. 

80      '       must 


it, 

\ 

find 

stand 

1\ 

some 

can't 

work. 

\5 

ing. 

/But 
2/   am 

kill- 

I 

is 

fit 

iness    y 
Lone-/ 4 

for 
8\    ^"'^^ 

unfit. 

How 

the 

lone- 

of 

.  ly 

one 

it 

be        to       is 


Vacillation  {folie  de  doute)  has  the  same  circular 
character,  or  pendulous  swing. 


so 

1 

guess 

now, 

.\ 

I'll 

buy 

buy 

I 

stock 

if 

at 

rich 

once. 

get 

to 

,/But 

chance 

/the 

did 

price 

splen- 

may 

a 
is 

\      fall. 
3\ 

there         . 

I 

But/4 

guess 
it's 

now. 

safer 

buy 

4-^ 

not 

THE  CALL  OF  THE  JOB  19 

"Break  away,"  says  the  wise  world.  For  this  sort 
of  thing  is  checked  by  breaking  out  anywhere  into  the 
real  world  and  going  straight  in  any  direction.  The 
"pale  cast  of  worry"  was  what  Hamlet  miscalled 
"thought."  Thought  is  good,  and  so  is  action,  but 
circularity  is  neither  thought  nor  action,  nor  anything 
but  a  round  dance  of  badly  trained  brain  cells. 

Many  doubts  and  fears  of  the  circular  type  are  cured 
by  work,  because  it  gives  us  the  evidence  needed  to 
banish  the  fear.  "  Mr.  Accomplishment "  is  the  witness 
whom  we  must  secure,  because  the  doubts  and  fears 
that  we  are  talking  about  now  are  doubts  of  one's  own 
powers,  or  fears  of  one  *s  own  weakness.  A  doctor  or 
friend  may  asseverate  till  he  is  black  in  the  face:  "You 
have  this  power ;  you  need  n't  fear  that  weakness."  But 
nothing  convinces,  or  ought  to  convince  in  such  a  mat- 
ter, except  waking  up  to  find  one's  self  actually  doing 
the  thing  for  which  one  could  not,  by  taking  thought, 
conceive  one's  strength  sufficient. 

In  all  such  healing  of  worry  through  work  we  begin 
with  a  plunge  and  a  submersion  of  consciousness.  For 
"action,"  when  we  contrast  it  with  "thought,"  means 
an  amaizing  descent  into  the  arms  of  the  elemental 
which  supports  us  and  carries  us  to  achievement  across 
a  gulf  of  unconsciousness.  In  singing  one  throws  the 
voice  at  a  high  note  wisely  oblivious  of  just  how  one 
gets  there.  One  measures  the  stream  before  leaping  it, 
but  not  in  the  moment  of  the  leap.  In  enthusiasm, 
elan,  and  the  most  successful  flights  of  invention  or 


20  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

creative  art,  we  shut  our  eyes,  and  surrender  ourselves 
into  the  hands  of  some  force  that  we  trust  but  cannot 
watch.  How  does  this  differ  from  recklessness  and 
jumping  at  conclusions?  It  differs  in  its  preparation. 
The  hfe  that  we  have  lived  before  we  thus  surrender 
ourselves  guides  us  even  in  our  passivity.  Training  and 
conscious  practice  lead  us  up  to  the  brink  of  the  gulf 
and  fix  the  direction  of  our  leap.  But  the  final  plunge, 
the  miracle  of  fresh  achievement,  cometh  not  during 
observation,  but  in  darkness  when  the  sun  has  set. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  JOY  OF  WORK 

Sunday,  September  15,  1907,  I  could  not  find  a 
seat  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston's  colonial  relic,  where 
President  Dennis  Driscoll,  of  the  Boston  Central  Labor 
Union  was  to  answer  what  President  Eliot  had  said 
on  the  previous  Sunday  on  the  rights,  duties,  and  privi- 
leges of  the  manual  laborer.  With  manual  laborers  the 
hall  was  so  crowded  that  I  found  standing-room  only 
in  the  middle  aisle.  President  Driscoll  finished  what  he 
had  to  say  about  the  ** closed  shop"  and  turned  to 
another  topic :  — 

'*  President  Eliot  spoke  last  Sunday  to  us  working- 
men  about  The  Joy  of  Work!"  said  the  speaker,  and 
paused.  Then  as  he  lifted  his  head  from  his  manuscript 
and  looked  out  over  the  crowded  hall,  a  sound  of  de- 
risive laughter  spread  in  wave  after  wave  over  the 
audience.  There  was  but  one  thing  to  think  of  such 
an  idea  as  **The  Joy  of  Work."  It  was  a  bitter  joke. 
To  the  workmen  present,  it  was  really  ludicrous  that 
a  man  could  be  so  foolish,  so  ignorant  of  manual  work 
as  to  believe  that  there  is  any  enjoyment  in  it. 

To  me  that  laughter  was  one  of  the  saddest  facts 
that  I  have  faced.  This  audience  of  manual  workers 
was  instantly  and  instinctively  of  one  mind.  Their 
leader  had  no  need  even  to  express  his  thought.    It 


22  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

was  enough  to  put  together  in  one  sentence  the  idea  o! 
joy  and  the  idea  of  work;  the  absurdity,  the  contra- 
diction, was  then  self-evident.  Any  joy  that  was  to  come 
to  them  must  come  out  of  working  hours.  Their  work 
was  drudgery  to  which  they  were  bound  by  the  ancient 
curse:  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread." 
But  though  necessity  bound  them,  their  minds  were 
still  free  to  protest.  If  work  were  already  full  of  joy, 
would  they,  the  manual  workers,  be  united  to  change 
and  improve  the  conditions  of  labor?  Their  very 
existence  as  members  of  "organized  labor,**  their  very 
presence  in  that  hall,  meant  that  they  were  vehe- 
mently dissatisfied  with  their  work  and  with  one  whom 
they  viewed  as  a  soft-handed  academic  professor,  ig- 
norant of  the  actual  conditions  of  modem  manual  work, 
and  therefore  deluded  enough  to  suppose  that  there  is 
joy  in  it.   How  little  they  knew  President  Eliot ! 

I  have  told  this  incident  to  sharpen  further  the  pre- 
viously defined  distinction  between  work  and  drudgery. 
Even  if  drudgery  has  its  blessings,^  it  is  surely  no  bless- 
ing to  him  whose  life  contains  little  or  nothing  else.  For 
President  Driscoll's  audience  the  satisfactions  of 
drudgery  (though  President  Eliot  called  it  work)  were 
nonexistent.  They  did  not  know  what  he  was  talking 
about,  and  he  (they  felt  sure)  did  not  know  their  lives. 
His  **work**  was  their  "play.**  In  the  zest  of  their 
labor-union  discussions  (never  thought  of  as  "work"), 
tliey  perhaps  got  nearer  to  the  enjoyment  of  something 

»  W.  C.  Gannett,  D.D.,  "Blessed  be  drudgery." 


THE  JOY  OF  WORK  23 

which  he  would  have  called  work  than  at  any  other 
time ;  but  they  never  imagined  that  he  could  mean  any- 
thing like  that. 

Much,  perhaps  most,  that  is  called  work  in  modem 
industrial  society  weighs  upon  the  laborer  as  a  blight 
and  a  burden,  something  to  be  hated  and  so  far  as  may 
be  banished  out  of  life.  Now  we  can  all  agree,  can't  we, 
that  whatever  feels  like  this  ought  not  to  be  praised 
and  cultivated?  We  may  say  that  this  is  slavery,  not 
real  work,  that  it  is  the  abuse,  not  the  fruition,  of  man's 
labor.  But  then  we  must  not  extol  indiscriminately 
all  that  goes  by  the  name  of  work. 

A  rich  man  may  find  it  very  good  fun  to  task  his 
muscles  now  and  then  with  wood-chopping  or  horse- 
shoeing, but  he  is  a  fool  if  he  supposes  that  the  wood- 
chopper  or  the  horse-shoer  gets  this  amateur's  pleasure 
out  of  his  trade.  **  Arizona  is  a  delightful  place  to  live, 
is  n't. it?"  I  said  co  a  consumptive  doctor  whom  I  met 
on  his  daily  rounds  near  Flagstaff.  *'0h,  yes,"  he  an- 
swered,*'if  you  don't  have  to  live  here."  The  tourist's, 
the  greenhorn's,  the  amateur's  view  of  manual  work 
dwells  on  its  picturesque,  its  novel,  and  exciting  aspects. 
But  this  is  rightly  rejected  by  the  day  laborer.  Who 
can  blame  him  for  indignation  against  those  who  praise 
manual  work  because  they  have  never  done  any? 

But  is  it  so  bad,  even  In  present-day  factory  condi- 
tions,—  is  it  so  joyless  as  President  Driscoll's  audience 
felt  it  to  be  that  Sunday  afternoon?    Was  there  not 


24  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

something  of  pure  misunderstanding  and  cross-pur- 
poses in  that  lamentable  mirth  at  President  Eliot's 
expense?  Question  any  prosperous,  hustling  American 
male  (who  would  sooner  work  than  eat) ;  put  to  him  the 
question,  "Do  you  find  joy  in  your  work?"  he  will 
deny  it  with  an  oath  or  with  a  good  version  of  the  de- 
risive laugh  which  I  heard  in  Faneuil  Hall. 

For  in  the  first  place  "joy"  is  too  "hifalutin"  a  word 
for  him  to  take  upon  his  lips.  It  recalls  to  him  some 
pink-and-blue-ribboned  frivolity,  or  the  grotesque 
frenzy  of  a  religious  camp-meeting.  If  you  asked: 
"  How  do  you  like  your  job?  "  or  if  you  got  him  talking 
about  its  technicalities,  there  would  ooze  out  in  his 
talk  something  of  his  solid  satisfaction  in  it,  some  of  its 
spice  and  variety,  even  some  genuine  emotion  about 
its  rewards  and  adventures.  I  have  asked  that  question 
of  a  great  many  workingmen  under  conditions  of  inti- 
macy when  mutual  understanding  was  to  be  relied 
upon,  and  I  never  received  more  than  two  or  three 
negative  answers.  If  we  ask  about  "joy,"  then  na- 
tional peculiarities,  masculine  shyness,  and  fear  of 
emotion  play  a  part  in  the  discouraging  answers. 
There  is  an  instinct,  too,  against  the  vivisection  of  this 
fragile  element,  — joy,  —  from  out  the  tissue  of  working 
life. 

Yet,  even  in  manual  labor,  just  as  it  is  in  America 
to-day  and  with  all  our  sins  and  blunders  upon  its  head, 
there  is  still,  I  believe,  much  satisfaction  to  the  work- 
man. Else  why  is  it  that  when  he  is  sick  he  complains 


THE  JOY  OF  WORK  25 

in  that  most  pregnant  phrase:  ''Doctor,  IVe  lost  all 
my  ambition"?  By  ambition  he  means  zest  and  spirit 
for  work.  A  mere  slave,  a  hopeless  drudge,  would  not 
know  what  this  "ambition"  meant.  One  cannot  lose 
one's  appetite  for  life  and  work  unless  despite  their 
monotony  and  strain  they  once  tasted  good.  The  sense 
of  competence,  the  conscious  possession  of  skill  that 
the  apprentice  cannot  learn  in  many  months,  —  there 
is  almost  always  some  satisfaction  in  that.  Then  the 
comradeship  in  work,  the  gossip  and  jokes  over  it,  the 
twist  and  turn  of  the  unexpected  in  every  day's  work, 
the  appreciation  of  friends  and  onlookers,  all  these 
weave  about  the  monotonous  job  a  web  of  genuine 
interest.  The  job  itself,  —  parts  of  it,  anyway,  —  may 
then  become  as  automatic  as  breathing  or  eating.  Only 
the  invalid  is  oppressed  by  the  curse  of  labor  in  his 
physiological  functions,  as  he  draws  his  breath,  chews 
his  meat,  or  handles  his  knife  and  fork. 

Yet  President  Driscoll's  speech,  his  audience,  and 
their  scorn  of  President  Eliot's  "joy  of  work  "  are  facts 
which  we  must  take  seriously  to  heart.  For  any  other 
audience  of  manual  laborers  would  doubtless  have 
laughed  just  as  bitterly  at  the  idea  that  there  was  joy 
in. their  work  —  partly,  as  I  believe,  from  dislike  of 
the  word  "joy,"  partly  from  misunderstanding  of  the 
speaker's  motive,  but  largely  because  they  believe  that 
they  have  been  forced,  without  any  choice  of  their 
own,  into  work  in  which  they  do  not  believe  they  are 


26  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

getting  their  fair  share  of  return,  in  which  they  cannot 
recognize  their  own  achievement,  and  in  which  they 
get  no  human  touch  with  their  employers.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  work  itself,  nor  even  its  unhealthful  condi- 
tions that  wage-earners  resent.  It  is  rather  the  state 
of  society  by  reason  of  which  (as  they  believe),  some- 
one no  better  or  wiser  than  they,  someone  whom  they 
never  chose  to  lead  them,  has  U3urped  the  right  to  force 
work  upon  them  under  unsanitary  conditions  and  at 
low  wages.  Social  and  political  leaders  they  can  choose. 
** Captains  of  industry*'  they  must  find  and  follow,  too 
often,  with  bitter  protest. 

To  remedy  these  great  evils  economic  readjustments, 
—  socialism  or  some  halfway  house  on  the  road  to  it,  — 
will  doubtless  be  tried  within  the  next  few  decades.  But 
no  one  will  like  his  job  any  better  unless  not  only  the 
economic  but  the  psychical  conditions  are  notably 
improved.  Above  all,  our  personal  relations  and  per- 
sonal ideals  must  improve,  else  economic  reforms  will 
amount  to  nothing.  Things  are  bad;  but  it  is  people,  ( 
not  mere  things  that  make  them  so.  Economic  reforms, 
better  hours  and  wages,  will  do  good  if  they  mirror  and 
accompany  an  improvement  in  your  character  and  mine ; 
not  otherwise.  As  fast  as  we  grow  more  honest,  more 
generous,  and  more  ambitious,  we  shall  make  a  better 
industrial  system  and  a  new  form  of  government  to 
clothe  our  larger  powers.  Meantime  "  class  conscious- 
ness," which  means  class  hatred,  delays  our  advance. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB 

In  the  crude  job  as  we  get  it  there  is  much  rubbish. 
For  work  is  a  very  human  product.  It  is  no  better 
than  we  have  made  it,  and  even  when  it  is  redeemed 
from  brutal  drudgery  it  is  apt  to  be  scarred  and  warped 
by  our  stupidities  and  our  ineptitudes.  Out  of  the 
rough-hewn  masses  in  which  work  comes  to  us,  it  is  our 
business,  it  is  civilization's  business,  to  shape  a  voca- 
tion fit  for  man.  We  shall  have  to  remake  it  again 
and  again;  meantime,  before  we  reject  what  we  now 
have,  it  is  worth  while  to  see  what  we  want. 

What  (besides  better  hours,  better  wages,  healthier  . 
conditions)  are  the  points  of  a  good  job?  Imagine  a 
sensible  man  looking  for  satisfactory  work,  a  voca- 
tional adviser  guiding  novices  towards  the  best  avail- 
able occupation,  and  a  statesman  trying  to  mould  the 
industrial  world  somewhat  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire, 
—  what  should  they  try  for?  Physical  and  financial 
standards  determine  what  we  get  out  of  our  work.  But 
what  shall  we  get  in  it?  Much  or  little,  I  answer,  ac- 
cording to  its  fitness  or  unfitness  for  our  personality,  — 
a  factor  much  neglected  nowadays. 

Among  the  points  of  a  good  job  I  shall  name  seven:  | 
(i)  Difficulty  and  crudeness  enough  to  call  out  our  ' 
latent  powers  of  mastery.    (2)  Variety  so  balanced  by 


28  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

monotony  as  to  suit  the  individuars  needs.  (3)  A  boss. 
(4)  A  chance  to  achieve,  to  build  something  and  to 
recognize  what  we  have  done.  (5)  A  title  and  a  place 
which  is  ours.  (6)  Connection  with  some  institution, 
some  firm,  or  some  cause,  which  we  can  loyally  serve. 
(7)  Honorable  and  pleasant  relation  with  our  com- 
rades in  work.  Fulfill  these  conditions  and  work  is 
one  of  the  best  things  in  life.  Let  me  describe  them 
more  fully* 

J 

We  want  a  chance  to  subdue.  Boys  like  to  go  stamping 

through  the  woods  in  thick-soled  boots.  They  like  to 
crush  the  sticks  in  their  path  and  to  jerk  off  the 
branches  that  get  in  their  way.  If  there  is  need  to  clear 
a  path,  so  much  the  better;  the  pioneer's  instinct  is 
the  more  strongly  roused.  For  there  is  in  most  of  us 
an  ancient  hunger  to  subdue  the  chances  which  we 
meet,  to  tame  what  is  wild.  As  another's  anger  calls 
out  ours,  so  the  stubbornness  of  nature  rouses  our  de- 
termination to  subdue  it.  We  want  to  encounter  the 
raw  and  crude.  Before  the  commercial  age,  war,  hunt- 
ing, and  agriculture  gave  us  this  foil.  We  want  it  still, 
and  for  the  lack  of  it  often  find  our  work  too  soft. 

Of  course,  we  can  easily  get  an  overdose  of  crude 
resistance.  A  good  job  should  offer  us  a  fair  chance  of 
our  winning.  We  have  no  desire  to  be  crushed  without 
a  struggle.  But  we  are  all  the  better  pleased  if  the  fish 
makes  a  good  fight  before  he  yields. 

Not  only  in  the  wilderness,  but  wherever  we  deal 


THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB  29 

with  raw  material,  our  hands  meet  adventures.  Every 
bit  of  wood  and  stone,  every  stream  and  every  season, 
has  its  own  tantalizing  but  fascinating  individuality; 
and  as  long  as  we  have  health  and  courage,  these  novel- 
ties strike  not  as  frustration  but  as  challenge. 

Even  in  half-tamed  products,  like  leather  or  steel, 
there  are,  experts  tell  me,  incalculable  variations  which 
keep  us  on  the  alert  if  we  are  still  close  enough  to  the 
elemental  to  feel  its  fascinating  materiality.  When  a 
clerk  sells  dry-goods  over  the  counter,  I  suppose  he  has 
to  nourish  his  frontiersman*s  spirit  chiefly  in  foiling  the 
wily  bargain-hunter  or  trapping  the  incautious  country- 
man. But  I  doubt  if  the  work  is  as  interesting  as  a 
carpenter*s  or  a  plumber's.  It  reeks  so  strong  of  civili- 
zation and  the  ''finished  product'*  that  it  often  sends 
us  back  to  the  woods,  to  seek  in  a  ''vacation"  that 
touch  with  the  elemental  which  should  properly  form 
part  of  daily  work. 

V  We  want  both  monotony  and  variety.  The  monotony 
of  work  is  perhaps  the  quality  of  which  we  most  often 
complain,  —  often  justifiably.  Yet  monotony  is  really 
demanded  by  almost  every  one.  Even  children  cry 
for  it,  though  in  doses  smaller  than  those  that  suit 
their^  elders.  Your  secretary  does  not  like  her  work  if 
you  put  more  than  her  regular  portion  of  variety  into 
it.  She  does  not  want  to  be  constantly  undertaking  new 
tasks,  adapting  herself  to  new  situations.  She  wants 
some  regularity  in  her  traveling,  some  plain  stretches  in 


30  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

which  she  can  get  up  speed  and  feel  quantity  of  accom- 
plishment;  that  is,  she  wants  a  reasonable  amount  of 
monotony.  Change  and  novelty  in  work  are  apt  to 
demand  fresh  thought,  and  to  reduce  our  speed. 

Of  course,  there  is  a  limit  to  this.  We  want  some  va- 
riety, some  independence  in  our  work.  But  we  can 
easily  get  too  much.  I  have  heard  as  many  complaints 
and  felt  in  myself  as  many  objections  against  variety 
as  against  monotony.  I  have  seen  and  felt  as  much  dis- 
content with  ** uncharted  freedom"  as  with  irksome 
restraint.  Bewilderment,  a  sense  of  incompetence  and 
of  rudderless  drifting,  are  never  far  off  from  any  one  of 
us  in  our  work.  There  is  in  all  of  us  something  that 
likes  to  trot  along  in  harness,  —  not  too  tight  or  galling, 
to  be  sure,  —  but  still  in  guidance  and  with  support. 
That  makes  us  show  our  best  paces. 

Nor  is  there  anything  slavish  or  humiliating  in  this. 
It  is  simply  the  admission  that  we  are  not  ready  at 
every  moment  to  be  original,  inventive,  creative!  We 
have  found  out  the  immense  strain  and  cost  of  fresh 
thinking.  We  are  certain  that  we  were  not  born  to  be 
at  it  perpetually.  We  want  some  rest  in  our  work,  some 
relief  from  high  tension.  Monotony  supplies  that  relief. 
Moreover  the  rhythmic  and  habitual  elements  in  us  (an* 
cient,  labor-saving  devices)  demand  their  representa- 
tion. To  do  something  again  and  again,  as  the  trees, 
the  birds,  and  our  own  hearts  do,  is  a  fundamental 
need  which  demands  and  receives  satisfaction  in  work 
as  well  as  in  play.   . 


THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB         31 

For  the  tragedies  and  abominations,  the  slaveries  and 
degradations,  of  manual  labor,  we  cannot  put  all  the 
blame  on  the  large  element  of  monotony  and  repeti- 
tion which  such  labor  often  contains.  We  should  revolt 
and  destroy  any  undertaking  that  was  not  somewhat 
monotonous.  But  the  point  is  that  work  ought  to  offer 
to  each  worker  as  much  variety  and  independence  as 
he  has  originality  and  genius,  no  more  and  no  less.  Give 
us  either  more  or  less  than  our  share  and  we  are  miser- 
able. We  can  be  crushed  and  overdriven  by  too  much 
responsibility,  as  well  as  by  too  little.  Our  initiative  as 
well  as  our  docility  can  be  overworked. 

We  want  a  boss,  especially  in  heavy  or  monotonous 
work.  Most  monotonous  work  is  of  the  sort  that  is  cut 
out  and  supplied  ready  to  hand.  This  implies  that  some 
one  else  plans  and  directs  it.  If  we  are  to  do  the  pulling, 
some  one  else  should  hold  the  reins.  When  I  am  digging 
my  wife's  garden-beds,  I  want  her  to  specify  where  they 
shall  go.  We  all  want  a  master  of  some  kind,  and  most 
of  us  want  a  master  in  human  shape.  The  more  manual 
our  work  is  the  more  we  want  him.  Boatmen  poling  a 
scow  through  a  creek  need  some  one  to  steer  and  to  tell 
them  which  should  push  harder  as  they  turn  the  bends 
of  th6  stream.  The  steersman  may  be  chosen  by  lot 
or  each  may  steer  in  turn,  but  some  boss  we  must  have, 
for  when  we  are  poling  we  can't  well  steer  and  we  don't 
want  the  strain  of  trying  fruitlessly  to  do  both.  This 
example  seems  to  me  to  typify  a  large  proportion  of  the 


32  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

world's  work.  It  demands  to  be  bossed,  and  it  is  more 
efficient,  even  more  original,  when  it  is  bossed, — just 
enough ! 

Monotony,  then,  and  bossing  we  need,  but  in  our 
own  quantity  and  also  of  our  own  kind.  For  there  are 
different  kinds  (as  well  as  different  doses)  and  some  are 
better  than  others.  For  example,  to  go  to  the  same  place 
of  work  every  day  is  a  monotony  that  simplifies  life 
advantageously  for  most  of  us,  but  to  teach  the  same 
subject  over  and  over  again  is  for  most  teachers  an 
evil,  though  it  may  be  just  now  a  necessary  evil. 

We  must  try  to  distinguish.  When  we  delight  in 
thinking  ourselves  abused,  or  allow  ourselves  the  luxury 
of  grumbling,  we  often  single  out  monotony  as  the  tar- 
get of  our  wrath.  But  we  must  not  take  all  complaints 
(our  own  or  other  people's)  at  their  face  value.  A  coat 
is  a  misfit  if  it  is  too  big  or  too  small,  or  if  it  puckers 
in  the  wrong  place.  A  job  can  be  a  misfit  in  twenty 
different  ways  and  can  be  complained  of  in  as  many 
different  tones.  Let  us  be  clear  about  this.  If  our 
discontent  is  as  divine  as  it  feels,  it  is  not  because 
all  monotony  is  evil,  but  because  our  own  particular 
share  and  kind  of  monotony  have  proved  to  be  a  de- 
grading waste  of  energy. 

We  want  to  see  the  product  of  our  work.  The  bridge  we 
planned,  the  house  we  built,  the  shoes  we  cobbled,  help 
us  to  get  before  ourselves  and  so  to  realize  more  than 
a  moment's  worth  of  life  and  effort.  The  impermanence 


THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB         33 

of  each  instant's  thought,  the  transience  of  every  flush 
of  effort,  tends  to  make  our  lives  seem  shadowy  even 
to  ourselves.  Our  memory  is  a  sieve  through  which 
most  that  we  pick  up  runs  back  like  sand.  But  in  work 
we  find  refuge  and  stability,  for  in  the  accumulated 
product  of  many  days'  labor  we  can  build  up  and  pre- 
sent at  last  to  our  own  sight  the  durable  structure  of 
what  we  meant  to  do.  Then  we  can  believe  that  our 
intentions,  our  hopes,  our  plans,  our  daily  food  and 
drink,  have  not  passed  through  us  for  nothing,  for  we 
have  funded  their  worth  in  some  tangible  achievement 
which  outlasts  them. 

Further,  such  external  proofs  of  our  efficiency  wiiv 
us  not  only  self-respect,  but  the  recognition  of  others. 
We  need  something  to  show  for  ourselves,  something 
to  prove  that  our  dreams  are  not  impotent.  Work  gives 
us  the  means  to  prove  it. 

I  want  to  acknowledge  here  my  agreement  in  the 
charge  often  brought  against  modern  factory  labor,  — 
namely,  that  since  no  workman  plans  or  finishes  his 
product,  no  one  can  recognize  his  product,  take  pride 
in  it,  or  see  its  defects.  Even  when  factory  labor 
is  well  paid,  its  impersonal  and  wholesale  merging  of 
the  man  in  the  machine  goes  far  to  make  it  unfit  for 
men  and  women. 

**Goes  far,"  I  say, — but  not  the  whole  way.  For 
division  of  labor  means  specialism,  and  specialism,  as 
we  know  in  the  professions,  has  its  glories  despite  its 
dangers.   A  specialty,  as  Professor  G.  H.  Palmer  has 


34  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

told  us,*  can  be  a  window  through  which  we  look  out 
on  all  the  world.  One  subject,  deeply  studied,  gives  us 
clues  and  analogies  to  many  others,  gives  us  member- 
ship in  the  freemasonry  of  those  who  have  mastered 
something,  develops  the  power  to  respect  and  the  right 
to  be  respected.  I  have  known  as  patients  men  who, 
through  their  mastery  of  one  small  process  in  watch- 
making, had  developed  a  liberal  outlook  on  other 
difficult  arts,  a  just  pride  in  good  workmanship  and 
an  inventor's  energy.  This  is  not  common  or  easy  in 
any  sort  of  specialism,  but  it  is  never  impossible. 

We  want  a  handle  to  our  name.  Every  one  has  a  right 
to  the  distinction  which  titles  of  nobility  are  meant  to 
give,  but  it  is  from  our  work  that  we  should  get  them. 
The  grocer,  the  trapper,  the  night-watchman,  the  cook, 
is  a  person  fit  to  be  recognized,  both  by  his  own  timid 
self  and  by  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  time  the  title  of 
our  job  comes  to  stand  for  us,  to  enlarge  our  personal- 
ity and  to  give  us  permanence.  Thus  it  supplements  the 
standing  which  is  given  us  by  our  product.  To  "hold 
down  a  job"  gives  us  a  place  in  the  world,  something 
approaching  the  home  for  which  in  some  form  or  other 
every  one  longs.  *'Have  you  any  place  for  me?"  we 
ask  with  eagerness;  for  until  we  find  **a  place"  we  are 
tramps,  men  without  a  country. 

A  man  with  a  job  has,  at  least  in  embryo,  the  kind  of 
recognition  from  his  own  gang  which  we  all  crave.  He 

*  G.  H.  Palmer.  The  Teacher,  chap.  vi.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  1908^ 


THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB  35 

has  won  membership  in  a  club  that  he  wants  to  belong 
to  and  especially  hates  to  be  left  out  of.  To  be  in  it  as 
a  member  in  full  standing  gives  a  taste  of  self-respect 
and  self-confidence. 

Despite  certain  puritanical  traditions  there  are  many 
people  who  like  to  accent  the  fact  of  their  member- 
ship in  the  great  club  of  job-holders  by  some  scrap  of 
uniform,  partly  because  this  distinguishes  them  still 
further  from  the  untitled.  A  decidedly  amateurish 
pastry-cook  of  my  acquaintance  shifted  from  his  bak- 
ery into  private  service  at  the  first  opportunity,  but 
the  flat-topped  white  cap  which  he  had  acquired  in  the 
bakery  he  cherished  still  when  he  was  set  to  work  in 
the  tiny  kitchen  of  a  mountain  shanty.  It  was  his  badge 
of  office  and  he  was  proud  of  it.  Why  should  nurses 
and  naval  officers  have  uniforms  and  rejoice  in  them, 
while  bankers  and  professors  remain  undistinguished? 
I  see  no  good  reason  for  the  arbitrary  decrees  of  fashion 
in  such  matters.  tWhile  on  duty  I  think  every  trade  and 
every  profession  should  have  its  distinguishing  dress.; 
Our  common  citizenship  while  off  duty  would  then  be 
all  the  better  expressed. 

I  have  been  trying  to  point  out  the  features  which 
ought  to  dignify  and  enrich  our  work.  Mastery,  tangible 
achievement,  and  the  title  which  goes  with  even  the 
most  unsatisfactory  job  enlarge  our  personality  by 
making  us  stand  for  something  permanent  and  recog- 
nizable. So  does  connection  with  a  firm,  a  college,  a 
municipality,  a  labor  union,  a  trade  association.   The 


36  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

consciousness  of  membership  takes  away  something 
of  the  self-seeking  character  of  economic  effort.  Even 
when  we  feel  hostile  to  the  people  or  the  policies  just 
now  in  control  of  our  working  group,  we  find  both  a 
stimulus  and  a  wholesome  restraint  in  the  member- 
ship. 

We  want  congeniality  with  our  fellow  workmen.  One 
of  the  few  non-physical  "points"  which  people  have 
already  learned  to  look  for  in  selecting  work  is  the  tem- 
per and  character  of  the  "boss/*  Men,  and  especially 
women,  care  almost  as  much  about  this  as  about  the 
hours  and  wages  of  the  job.  Young  physicians  will  work 
in  a  laboratory  at  starvation  wages  for  the  sake  of  being 
near  a  great  teacher,  even  though  he  rarely  notices 
them.  The  congeniality  of  fellow  workmen  is  almost 
as  important  as  the  temper  of  the  boss.  Two  un- 
friendly stenographers  in  a  single  room  will  often  give 
up  their  work  and  take  lower  wages  elsewhere  in  order 
to  escape  each  other. 

All  this  is  so  obvious  to  those  who  look  for  jobs  that 
I  wonder  why  so  few  employers  have  noticed  it.  The 
housewives  who  keep  their  servants,  the  manufac- 
turers who  avoid  strikes,  are  not  always  those  who  pay 
the  best  wages  and  offer  the  best  conditions  of  work. 
The  human  facts,  the  personal  relations  of  employer 
and  employee,  are  often  disregarded,  but  always  at 
the  employer's  peril.  The  personal  factor  is  as  great 
as  the  economic  in  the  industrial  unrest  of  to-day. 


THE  POINTS  OF  A  GOOD  JOB  37 

Are  not  even  the  "captains  of  industry"  beginning  to 
wake  up  to  this  fact? 

The  psychical  standards  which  I  have  now  tried  to 
enumerate,  —  balanced  variety  and  monotony,  initia- 
tive and  supervision,  the  chance  to  subjugate  nature  or 
personally  to  create  something,  pleasant  companion- 
ship, a  title  and  an  institutional  connection,  —  go  far 
to  give  us  happiness  in  work.  But  even  if  we  have  the 
ideal  job  there  is  much  in  the  temper  with  which  we 
take  it.  Our  temperament  may  be  one  of  those  incur- 
ably sad  or  anxious  ones  that  can  never  pluck  any  values 
out  of  daily  existence  or  draw  them  from  the  future 
by  anticipation.  The  remedies  for  this  are  hard  to 
seek.  They  can  rarely  be  found  in  work,  sometimes  in 
play,  in  love,  or  in  worship. 

45418 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM:  THOUGHT  AND 
ACTION   IN  WORK 

If  any  one  tells  me  that  Modern  America  is  lament- 
ably, even  dangerously,  weak  in  the  capacity  to  ap- 
preciate the  accumulated  treasures  of  literature,  to 
learn  the  lesson  of  history,  and  to  distinguish  true  from 
shoddy  goods  in  philosophy  and  art,  I  have  to  agree. 
Nor  can  I  deny  that  we  are  ludicrously  unaware  of  the 
exuberant  life  of  the  trees  and  flowers,  so  close  around 
us,  so  full  of  their  own  kind  of  ingenuity,  skill,  and 
strength,  as  well  as  of  beauty.  We  don*t  know  much 
about  animals,  clouds,  mountains,  or  rivers,  —  which 
could  give  us  pointers  about  our  jobs  as  well  as  a  shiver 
of  admiration  at  the  way  they  do  theirs.  We  are  dunces 
at  music,  sculpture,  poetry,  religion.  The  only  arts  we 
appreciate  are  drama,  dancing,  and  baseball,  the  only 
"literature"  we  read  is  in  the  newspapers. 

Yet,  when  my  old  friend  Thomas  Davidson^  used 
to  rail  at  the  commercialism  of  our  time  and  compare 
our  life  disdainfully  with  that  of  Athens,  its  temples 
with  our  factories,  its  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  wisdom 
with  our  cheap  newspaper  sensationalism,  its  art  with 
our  ugliness,  I  always  wondered  what  would  become 
of  a  people  all  of  whom  sat  under  apple  trees  writ- 

1  C.  W.  Bakewell,  Thomas  Davidson:  A  Memoir, 


THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM    39 

ing  poetry.  We  can  no  more  live  by  admiring  each 
other^s  sculpture  than  by  taking  in  each  other's  wash- 
ing. It  would  be  an  awful  fate  to  live  among  a  nation 
of  artists  and  philosophers,  or  to  read  nothing  but 
epics  and  sonnets  in  the  morning  paper.  Like  most 
of  those  who  hanker  after  Greek  perfection,  Davidson 
seemed  to  ignore  the  fact  that  only  a  vast  subterranean 
foundation  of  slave  labor  and  trade  made  possible  the 
precarious  superstructure  of  Greek  art  and  philosophy. 

At  Brook  Farm,  where  in  the  early  forties  the  re- 
formers tried  to  abolish  commercialism,  the  result  was 
that  a  few  devoted  people  nearly  slaved  themselves  to 
death  while  the  rest  of  the  party  felt  themselves ' '  called  *' 
to  comparatively  easy  tasks.  Take  away  our  "com- 
mercialism" and  we  should  obviously  starve;  but  even 
while  the  provisions  lasted  we  should  be  bored  and 
miserable.  Poets  and  prophets  leaven  the  lump  of 
ordinary  humanity;  but  to  live  with  a  townful  of  them 
would  be  as  insufferable  as  eating  twenty  dinners  on 
end.  Most  art  and  most  philosophy  ought  to  be  the 
by-product  or  the  holiday  adventure  of  lives  soaked 
through  by  the  teaching  of  more  humdrum  occupations. 
The  artistic,  philosophic,  literary,  or  scientific  specialist 
ought  always  to  be  as  rare  as  a  jewel  or  a  high  light, 
getting  his  meaning  and  power  from  his  setting. 

Without  commercialism,  most  folks,  while  waiting 
for  starvation,  would  have  to  loaf  or  tramp.  They  would 
be  far  more  unhappy  as  well  as  far  more  vicious  than 
they  are  now.  For  Satan  is  still  on  the  job.  The  human 


40  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

world  has  always  been  a  commercial  world,  busy  for 
the  most  part  like  the  birds  in  getting  its  living. 

Whether  we  are  socialists  or  apostles  of  art,  culture^ 
and  the  spiritual  life,  all  that  we  have  a  right  to  object 
to  in  modern  commercialism  is  that  while  centralizing 
industry  it  has  also  partially  crushed  individuality.  The 
man  who  made  a  whole  house  and  who  lived  in  a  whole 
house  must  have  developed  in  the  process  more  human 
nature,  more  skill,  ingenuity,  and  resource  than  the 
man  who  specializes  on  window  blinds  and  lives  in  a 
tenement. 

No  one  admires  the  type  of  man  who  lives  on  bana- 
nas in  a  tropical  island  and  usually  can't  be  hired  to 
work,  because  a  few  days'  labor  each  year  will  feed  him. 
We  all  agree,  I  take  it,  that  we  should  n't  want  (even 
if  we  could  get  it)  a  planet  peopled  with  beautiful  child- 
like loafers  such  as  Stevenson  and  LaFarge  found  in  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific.  We  agree  that  men  need  regular 
work,  with  hardship,  responsibility,  and  strain,  not  as 
their  chief  reward,  but  as  an  element  in  their  dadly 
occupation.  The  robust,  the  resourceful,  the  venture- 
some, the  tough,  persistent  characteristics  which  we 
all  prize  in  men  and  women  don't  develop  (so  far  as 
anybody  knows)  in  vacico,  —  without  the  pressure  and 
drive  which  if  overdone  beget  slavery.  As  long  as  we 
prize  these  characteristics  we  shall  always  need  to 
keep  a  sharp  lookout  lest  industry  make  slaves  of  us. 
There  is  something  fearful  about  the  industry  of  great 
and  fruitful  workers,  something  ascetic  and  at  times 


THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM    41 

almost  barbaric.     They  narrowly  escape  being  con- 
quered by  their  work. 

But  such  narrow  escapes  for  the  soul  are  not  peculiar 
to  commercialism.  The  advancing  organization  of 
science  is  always  close  to  pedantry;  the  possessor  of 
good  habits  is  always  on  the  verge  of  becoming  a  crea- 
ture of  habit,  the  person  of  acute  sensibility  is  always 
on  the  brink  of  sentimentalism.  No  age  and  no  organi- 
zation of  society  can  escape  such  dangers.  Any  one  who 
thinks  we  can  get  more  of  the  benefits  of  organized  in- 
dustry with  less  of  its  dreadful  by-products  must  show 
us  how  to  do  it.  Meantime,  it  is  idiotic  for  us  to 
reproach  ourselves  and  our  age  for  being  commercial. 
We  can  blame  ourselves  only  for  not  being  more  of 
something  else  beside  commercial,  or  for  being  commer- 
cial in  so  unintelligent  a  way;  for  a  man  without 
muscles  would  be  no  more  of  a  monstrosity  than  an 
age  without  commerce.  I  think  that  commerce,  like 
muscles,  can  be  made  beautiful,  intelligent,  and  re- 
sourceful as  well  as  powerful.  To  make  it  so  is  our 
present  need. 

Many  of  those  who  decry  "commercialism"  are 
fond  of  accenting  the  contrast  between  those  who  work 
with  their  brains  and  those  whose  work  they  suppose 
to  be  merely  manual  or  muscular.  In  their  desire  to 
exalt  the  spiritual  powers  of  man  they  are  fond  of  mak- 
ing a  hierarchy  in  which  lawyers,  writers,  teachers, 
poets,  philosophers,  preachers,  and  statesmen  come  at 


42  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

the  top,  while  those  who  use  their  senses  and  their 
muscles  come  at  the  bottom. 

But  is  head-work  nobler  than  hand-work?  Should  we 
all  strive  to  become  brain-workers  as  far  and  as  fast  as 
we  can?  Or  at  the  other  extreme  is  Tolstoy  right  when 
he  insists  that  every  one  should  do  "  bread -work," 
something  that  directly  increases  the  amount  of  food 
upon  the  earth? 

The  important  distinction  which  these  phrases  are 
meant  to  mark  is  that  between  thought  and  action: — ' 
thought  plans  action;  action  executes  thought.  The 
instant  that  thought  relinquishes  its  task  of  exploring 
the  future  and  closes  the  office  where  various  plans  and 
alterations  are  being  appraised,  a  relatively  mechanical 
*' carrying-out"  process  begins.  Simply  to  carry  out  a 
fixed  and  detailed  plan  is  so  machine-like  that  a  ma- 
chine will  probably  be  devised  to  do  it  better.  For  the 
new  machines  that  carry  out  the  logical  consequences 
of  any  proposition,  the  machines  that  copy  or  that  per- 
form the  arithmetical  process  of  adding,  subtracting, 
multiplying,  and  dividing,  are  not  the  less  machines 
because  they  do  what  is  often  called  "clerical"  work. 
They  do  not  call  up  the  past,  they  do  not  plan  or  choose 
between  future  alternatives. 

It  would  seem,  then,  as  if  all  labor  were  tending  to 
become  more  and  more  motionless  and  mental  while 
many  machines  and  a  few  unskilled  machine-tenders 
take  from  the  skilled  workers  and  the  entrepreneurs 
the  monotonous,  exhausting,  mindless  portions  of  the 


THE   REPROACH   OF  COMMERCIALISM    43 

world's  work.  But  while  this  is  something  like  the 
truth,  there  are  some  further  facts,  rather  shy  amd  un- 
noticed, that  make  the  separation  of  thought  and  action 
even  less  wide. 

Mr.  Greenhorn's  plans  have  this  form:  ''I  will  say 
to  Nature  x;  she  will  answer  y;  I  will  then  rejoin  with 
2**;  and  so  on.  -For  example,  **I  will  get  an  axe  and 
chop  into  the  base  of  that  tree.  It  will  fall  toward  the 
stream  and  I  will  then  tow  it  down.**  Or:  ^*I  will  put 
this  patient  in  a  sanitarium.  She  will  get  rested.  I  will 
then  take  out  her  appendix.'*  Or:  **  I  will  buy  some  of 
this  railroad  stock  offered  me  as  a  special  favor.  I  will 
go  in  *on  the  ground  floor,'  and  when  the  railroad  flour- 
ishes, I  shall  get  rich." 

The  second  step  in  each  of  these  processes,  the  spon- 
taneous maturing  of  our  project,  is  the  one  on  which 
labor  men  suppose  "capitalists"  are  resting.  Nature 
carries  out  our  plan:  we  sit  back  and  cut  the  coupons 
when  they  mature.  But  do  things  work  out  so?  The 
tree  we  planned  to  fall  into  the  stream  gets  caught 
overhead  in  a  most  unforeseeable  way.  It  can  be  worked 
free;  but  a  new  plan,  modifying  the  old  one,  must  be 
made  first.  The  patient's  "rest  cure"  may  not  rest 
her  at  all.  I  may  find  that  nothing  rests  her  but  work, 
and  meantime  the  appendix  quiets  down  and  does  n't 
have  to  be  removed. 

The  material  into  which  our  plan  burrows  like 
a  tunnel  under  construction,  is  always  more  or  less 
refractory.    Whether  it  is  the  actors  of  our  cast,  the 


44  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

characters  of  our  novel,  the  voters  of  our  district,  the 
members  of  our  week-end  party,  the  steel  of  our  cast- 
ings, the  wood  we  are  carving,  —  in  any  case  the  "ma- 
terial" resists  more  or  less.  Hence  we  are  forced  to 
feel  our  way  and  to  form  while  in  action  a  considerable 
part  of  our  plan. 

Though  this  is  trite  and  obvious,  we  often  forget  it 
when  we  are  declaiming  about  the  divorce  of  manual 
labor  from  mental  work,  or  the  chasm  between  thought 
and  action.  Good  thinking  feels  its  way  hy  action.  Good 
manual  work  is  full  of  thought.  Is  the  sculptor's  task 
manual  or  mental?  Of  course  bad  sculpture  may  be 
purely  manual  (that  is,  purely  imitative  or  conven- 
tional). There  is  also  an  opposite  kind  of  sculptural 
monstrosity,  which  looks  as  if  it  were  gnawed  out  of 
the  stone  by  a  man  without  hands..  Does  a  man  sing 
with  his  soul  or  with  his  vocal  cords?  Some  "vocal 
artists"  seem  to  be  all  vocalization  and  nothing  else; 
some  voiceless  sentimentalists  seem  to  be  trying  to  sing 
without  opening  their  mouths.  But  is  n*t  it  clear  as  day 
that  brain  and  muscle  wait  each  upon  the  other  for  the 
opportunity  to  do  what  God  meant  them  to  do?  The 
wise  thought,  the  successful  plan  says:  "I'll  say  to 
Nature  x,  and  then  see  what  she  says.  My  next  step, 
y,  will  depend  upon  her  answer."  Her  answer  comes  to 
us  through  our  muscles  and  our  senses,  and  keeps  us 
alive  from  head  to  foot.  It  is  married  to  our  thought 
and  completes  it. 

We  cannot  value  manual  work,  —  what  Tolstoy 


THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM    45 

calls  "bread- work/*  —  merely  because  it  is  not  brain- 
work.  Yet  his  warnings  may  be  greatly  needed.  He  is 
right  in  telling  us  that  we  may  get  warped  and  neuras- 
thenic, cold-hearted  and  footless,  if  our  muscles  are 
never  used,  our  vitality  never  husbanded  by  the  mono- 
tony of  routine  and  the  simplicity  of  the  elemental. 
Yet  farmers  are  not  all  wise  and  virtuous.  Tolstoy's 
solution  of  our  difficulty  is  too  simple.  If  the  race  is 
getting  stunted  and  neurotic,  puny  and  degenerate, 
because  it  is  tied  down  to  any  particular  kind  of  work, 
disproportionately  manual  or  mental,  it  is  time  for 
revolution  or  reform.  Somewhere  in  our  life,  in  our 
play,  if  not  in  our  work,  every  part  and  element  in  us 
ought  to  find  a  chance  to  praise  God  in  its  own  fashion. 

If  indoor  work,  machine  work,  literary  work,  farm 
work,  or  any  other  job  leaves  a  large  part  of  us  unserv- 
iceable, then  we  ought  either  to  find  some  outlet  for 
that  strength  during  the  hours  away  from  work  or  to 
change  the  work.  But  I  don't  find  that  agriculture  has 
turned  out  any  better  type  of  man  than  railroading  and 
shopkeeping.  That  it  weakens  health  is  a  serious  indict- 
ment of  any  trade ;  but  so  far  we  have  no  proof  that  the 
health  of  manual  workers  is  any  better  than  the  health 
of  those  of  us  who  use  our  brains  as  well  as  our  hands. 

Tolstoy  does  not  convince  me  that  we  are  always 
kinder,  more  neighborly,  more  comradely  in  the  more 
elemental  and  manual  trades  than  in  brain-work.  A 
touch  of  nature  does  make  all  the  world  kin,  but  it  is  a 
touch  rather  than  prolonged  pressure.  The  elemental, 


46  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

impinging  in  the  form  of  sharp,  brief  illness,  may  bring 
a  family  together.  But  chronic  illness,  prolonged  and 
infiltrated  through  days,  nights,  meals,  and  holidays, 
may  estrange  and  embitter  a  family.  A  party  of  peo- 
ple cruising  on  a  yacht  get  wonderfully  friendly  and 
even  intimate  during  a  week's  trip,  provided  the  yacht 
is  not  so  luxurious  as  to  exclude  them  from  the  work 
of  sailing  her.  But  this  is  true  just  because  the  contact 
with  elemental  life  is  a  passing  one.  A  shortage  of 
food  or  even  the  long  continuance  of  comfortable  cruis- 
ing life  sometimes  wears  out  nature's  power  to  make  our 
souls  kin.  When  we  are  tied  to  such  a  life,  as  Dana 
was  in  his  *'Two  Years  before  the  Mast,"  we  do  not 
appear  to  treat  each  other  more  kindly  than  the  city 
folk. 

Action  staged  always  among  elemental  conditions 
cannot  be  trusted  to  make  us  wise.  But  neither  can  we 
depend  upon  slippered  "thinkers"  for  wisdom.  If  the 
problem  is  to  know  what 's  wrong  with  a  business,  what 
people  will  buy,  how  an  election  is  to  be  won,  or  when 
the  psychological  moment  for  action  has  arrived,  he  is 
most  likely  to  be  right  who  can  muster  the  widest  ramge 
of  human  experiences,  hold  them  fairly  before  him  in 
review,  like  a  hand  of  cards,  and  then  judge. 

A  state  superintendent  of  education  might  seem  to 
be  as  much  emancipated  from  the  need  of  manual  work 
as  any  one  could  be.  He  deals  with  mental  and  spirit- 
ual problems,  with  the  course  of  study,  with  the  per- 
sonalities of  teachers  and  pupils,  the  humor  of  parents, 


THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM    47 

school  committees,  and  legislatures.  True;  but  that 
is  not  all.  He  has  also  to  test  out  courses  in  music, 
drawing,  physical  culture,  hygiene,  manual  and  indus- 
trial training,  and  even  if  he  decides  to  rule  them  all 
out  of  his  curriculum,  he  must  know  just  what  they  are 
before  he  can  exclude  them  wisely.  He  will  be  unfair 
to  athletics,  to  drawing,  to  forge- work,  to  folk-dancing, 
nature  study,  or  sex  hygiene,  unless  he  is  an  all-round 
man  and  not  merely  a  pedagogue.  He  must  have  done 
enough  work  with  every  sense,  with  every  muscle,  to 
know  its  worth  and  its  dangers. 

Just  what  dose  of  original  planning  and  what  stint 
of  executing  other  people's  plans  is  good  for  each  indi- 
vidual is  never  a  fixed  quantity.  But  every  one  needs 
both,  and  therefore  no  one  can  make  a  hierarchy  with 
the  ** mental*'  or  "spiritual"  tasks  at  the  top  and  the 
"manual"  ones  at  the  bottom.  The  proportion  of 
thought  and  of  action  which  is  proper  to  each  of  us 
depends  somewhat  upon  our  age.  Hence  the  ordinary 
process  of  promotion  from  less  responsible  and  simpler 
to  more  complex  and  difficult  positions  as  men  get  older 
is,  I  think,  somewhere  near  what  it  ought  to  be.  For 
old  men  are  apt  to  be  wiser  in  counsel ;  to  use  and  bal- 
ance their  energies  they  need  less  of  a  grapple  with  the 
elemental  than  when  they  were  young.  They  ought  not 
to  be  hustling  like  the  youngsters,  for  if  they  really 
were  youngsters  once  and  were  not  born  old,  all  the  old 
activities  of  eye,  ear,  and  hand,  all  the  crudities  and 
the  elementals  will  sit  as  representatives  in  the  chamber 


48  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

of  their  minds  and  contribute  their  vote  when  called 
for. 

Commercialism,  then,  should  not  be  used  as  a  term 
of  reproach.  Like  romanticism  or  asceticism  it  has  its 
good  and  its  bad  side.  What  it  needs  is  reshaping  to 
fit  our  actual  needs  rather  than  the  accidents  of  develop- 
ment. Remembering  how  intolerable  a  world  of  poets 
and  philosophers  would  be,  we  should  never  say  or 
imply  that  work  which  deals  largely  with  material  ob- 
jects is  any  lower  in  the  scale  of  worth  than  the  calling 
of  the  thinker  or  the  scholar.  For  science  and  art  are 
most  intimately  concerned  with  the  material  world  and 
derive  from  it  their  expressions  of  truth  and  beauty. 
The  practice  of  any  art  or  craft  cuts  clean  across  the  dis- 
tinctions between  "mental**  and  "manual"  work  and 
weaves  both  into  a  truer  whole. 

Let  us  abolish  terms  like  "physical  culture"  or 
"  mental  training.**  To  be  concerned  either  with  one's 
mind  or  one*s  body  is  a  morbid  practice.  One  should 
be  occupied  with  tasks  that  make  us  forget  both  mind 
and  body  in  a  higher  union  of  both. 

Thought  is  not  nobler  than  action.  It  is  the  first  or 
last  stage  of  action  and  its  worth  depends  on  the  act 
which  it  plans  or  mirrors.  Good  thinking  is  reshaped 
again  and  again  by  contact  with  the  obstacles  and  de- 
murrers of  its  material.  The  proportions  of  thought  and 
action,  of  commerce  and  poetry,  in  any  life,  must  be 
worked  out  by  each  person,  each  nation,  and  each  age 
to  fit  individual  needs. 


THE  REPROACH  OF  COMMERCIALISM    49 

Action,  manual  work,  Tolstoy's  ''bread- work,"  are 
not  nobler  than  the  practice  of  art,  science,  and  govern- 
ment. Tolstoy  was  right  in  insisting  that  morally  and 
intellectually  we  need  to  use  our  muscles  as  well  as 
our  minds,  wrong  in  supposing  that  his  own  noble 
scheme  of  life  is  ordained  for  all. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  GLORY  OF  RAW  MATERIAL 

The  material  side  of  life  may  be  enjoyed,  scorned, 
endured,  investigated,  or  ignored.  We  may  wallow  in 
it  luxuriously.  We  may  try  to  forget  it  and  live 
above  it.  We  may  bear  with  it  (sullenly  or  stoically) 
as  the  coal-heaver  does.  We  may  turn  it  into  physics 
and  chemistry.  We  may  not  notice  it  at  all.  These 
five  ways  of  behavior  towards  the  cruder  facts  of  life 
are  familiar  enough  to  all.  We  all  know  sensualists, 
idealists,  day-laborers,  and  scientists,  —  besides  many 
who  are  not  concerned  in  any  way  with  our  present 
problems. 

But  I  am  especially  interested  in  another  type,  one 
which  has  figured  brilliantly  in  the  writings  of  Charles 
Ferguson  and  Gerald  Stanley  Lee,  yet  is  still  too  little 
appreciated.  I  mean  the  man  who  genuinely  respects 
and  even  loves  the  material  world,  but  is  very  silent 
about  it.  The  object  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  de- 
scribe this  man,  and  the  world  as  he  sees  it.  He  be- 
longs in  this  section  of  my  book,  because  he  is  not  only 
a  worker,  but  the  typical  worker  of  the  present  day, 
soaked  with  the  spirit  of  work  and  therefore  with  re- 
spect for  matter  and  with  knowledge  of  its  nature.  He 
is  incarnate  in  some  of  the  best  doctors,  scientists,  and 
business  men  of  my  acquaintance,  but  I  shall  begin 


THE  GLORY  OF  RAW  MATERIAL       51 

with  his  most  superficial  and  forbidding  aspect,  the  face 
that  he  turns,  in  self-defense,  to  an  unsympathizing 
world. 

To  match  his  mood  of  incessant  industry  there  has 
grownup  in  him  a  certain  "  set "  of  the  spiritual  muscles. 
His  mind  is  bent  down  and  inward  like  the  prehensile 
hands  of  the  day-laborer.  Outwardly  he  is  stoical  and 
grim,  not  because  he  is  low-spirited,  but  because  he 
wants  to  protest  against  sentimentalism  and  gush.  He 
abhors  a  book  like  this  because  he  is  sick  of  all  theoriz- 
ing. **Tall  talk,  but  mighty  little  performance,"  is  his 
favorite  phrase  of  reproach.  Vividly  conscious  of  his 
own  limitations  and  of  the  world's  vast  and  dangerous 
power,  he  is  like  a  burnt  child  who  fears  life's  fires. 

Most  of  all,  perhaps,  he  fears  the  flames  of  emotion, 
of  love,  worship,  and  hot  faith.  He  sees  fools  hovering 
about  those  flames,  eager,  boastful,  and  reckless.  He 
has  his  own  type  of  enthusiasm,  —  well  hidden  beneath 
a  stoical  exterior,  —  but  his  work  has  taught  him 
chiefly  humility.  Indeed,  he  is  humble  not  only  for 
himself,  but  for  the  whole  race;  too  humble  to  expect 
progress,  divinity,  or  immortality.  Absolute  assurance 
on  all  such  matters  has  been  knocked  out  of  him  by 
nature's  stubborn  resistance  to  his  attack.  He  bows 
before  the  world  with  a  shrug  and  a  patient  stoop. 

Silence  is  characteristic  of  the  man  whom  I  am 
describing,  and  therefore  I  am  all  the  more  eager  to  de- 
scribe him.  He  is  taciturn,  partly  because  he  has  little 
aptitude  for  words  as  a  medium  of  exchange,  partly 


52  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

because  he  never  forgets  Booker  Washington's  story 
of  the  Negro  who  found  the  cotton  he  was  picking  so 
"grassy"  and  the  sun  so  powerful  hot  that  he  guessed 
he  had  a  call  to  preach.  People  who  give  up  work  and 
turn  to  talking  about  socialism  or  religion,  because 
talking  is  easier  than  working,  excite  in  him  a  holy 
horror.  The  smooth  drawing-room  ideals  which  they 
teach  so  glibly  are  sure  to  end  as  they  began,  in  talk. 
"Those  who  can,  do;  those  who  can't,  teach,"  he  says 
with  scorn. 

I  agree  with  much  of  this  indictment.  Idealism 
does  often  begin  in  talk  the  tasks  that  it  never  finishes 
in  action.  The  discouragements  encountered  as  we 
approach  the  later  and  harder  places  of  an  undertaking 
lead  many  of  us  to  glide  out  of  it  and  start  a  new  one. 
Our  devious  and  scrappy  lives  follow  Chesterton's  re- 
vised version  of  Longfellow:  — 

"Toiling,  rejoicing,  sorrowing,  so  I  my  life  conduct. 
Each  morning  sees  some  task  begun,  each  evening  sees  it  chucked.** 

Reformers  love  to  talk  and  think,  for  in  thought  we  can 
freely  shape  the  early  stages  of  great  projects.  But 
when  we  begin  to  carry  them  out,  we  get  into  regions 
not  so  malleable  by  thought,  —  regions  full  of  obsta- 
cles that  make  us  feel  ignorant  and  helpless. 

Such  obstacles  the  creative  worker  whom  I  am  here 
describing  has  often  fought  and  conquered.  When  he 
remembers  the  blood  and  sweat  which  he  has  expended 
in  the  struggle,  he  feels  a  deep  respect  for  the  enemy 
rvho  made  him  work  so  hard,  and  deep  disdain  for  those 


THE  GLORY  OF  RAW  MATERIAL   53 

who  are  always  lisping  out  the  beginnings  of  cam- 
paigns in  high-sounding  phrases,  but  never  completing 
their  sentence  in  action.  A  legislative  campaign,  for 
instance,  often  begins  in  eloquent  and  glorious  discus- 
sion. That  is  easy  and  pleasant.  But  in  its  later  compli- 
cations, among  the  quick  thrusts  and  parries  at  close 
range,  the  glory  goes  out  of  it;  it  becomes  sheer  work. 
The  fight  to  a  finish  is  the  best  test  of  sincerity  and 
strength.  Then  it  is  that  contact  with  hard  facts  begins 
to  knock  the  conceit  out  of  us. 

For  the  pioneer  whom  I  describe  the  world  is  colored 
by  memories  of  many  such  fights.  He  thinks  of  it  and 
attacks  it  as  a  mass  of  resistance,  a  huge  and  humbling 
opponent.  The  knots  in  lumber,  the  frost  which  spoils 
crops  and  orange  trees,  the  aridity  and  barrenness 
of  soils,  earthquakes  which  devastate  cities,  fires  that 
wipe  out  forests,  are  obstacles  that  make  us  respect  the 
enemy  and  remember  our  littleness.  But  the  pioneer 
whose  praises  I  am  now  celebrating,  the  creative 
worker  and  subduer  of  nature,  is  merely  humbled,  not 
crushed,  by  his  contact  with  the  material  world.  Its 
crude,  tough  resistance  nerves  his  spirit's  leap.  For 
matter  is  the  sire  of  necessity,  as  necessity  is  the  mother 
of  invention.  The  defiance  of  unbridged  streams  and 
devastating  disease  kindles  his  fighting  spirit  to  subdue 
them.  They  are  whip  and  spur  to  his  imagination. 
Inventiveness  and  valor  are  born  of  the  contact.  The 
lure  of  the  unconquered,  the  threat  of  death  and  disas- 
ter, draw  out  of  him  resources  of  ingenuity  which  could 


54  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

never  have  been  bom  unaided.  The  shock  of  raw 
nature's  adventures  and  incalculable  chances  string 
him  taut  like  a  cold  bath.  He  sees  his  work  fronting 
him,  and  runs  to  meet  it  with  fierce  joy. 

He  knows  that  he  need  not  run  far.  He  need  not 
always  be  venturing  into  the  wilderness.  The  raw  ma- 
terial of  creative  work  is  close  at  hand.  There  is  plenty 
of  elemental  resistance  to  be  met  in  homely  facts  like 
the  stupidity  of  school  children,  male  voters,  and  un- 
enfranchised women,  the  recalcitrancy  of  old  habits, 
the  anarchy  of  warring  elements  within  us,  the  resulting 
vice  and  crime  of  cities,  the  resulting  languor  and  de- 
gradation of  country  districts.  Plenty  of  virgin  soil 
for  cultivation  here.  Plenty  of  untrodden  wastes  to 
be  explored. 

For  the  "material  world"  is  not  only  outside  us.  It 
is  inside  us  as  well.  We  can  recognize  it  everywhere  by 
the  familiar  marks  of  crudity,  resistance,  disorder,  and 
darkness.  Rhapsodies  about  the  universe  may  seem  less 
poetical  to  conventional  minds  if  we  cross  out  the  word 
** nature **  wherever  itoccurs, and  substitute  "my  body" 
or  "my  cross  old  aunt,"  or  "my  own  stupidity."  But 
there  is  poetry  enough  in  all  these  tragic  facts,  and  work 
enough,  too.  No  one  can  deny  that  our  own  uncivilized 
impulses,  organs,  and  relatives  are  part  of  nature  and 
afford  ample  food  for  wonder,  for  ingenuity,  and  for 
taming  the  wild.  We  need  not  take  ship  for  distant 
lands  or  hark  back  to  savagery.  There  is  chaos  enough 
close  at  hand;  there  is  beauty  enough  alsor 


THE  GLORY  OF  RAW  MATERIAL       55 

The  pioneer  is  well  aware  of  this.  He  begins  at  home 
and  in  the  back  yard.  In  his  r61e  of  engineer  he  has 
been  recently  offering  us  advice  in  matters  of  health 
and  education.  He  will  not  be  confined  to  spanning 
deserts  and  torrents.  He  knows  that  the  terror  and 
havoc  of  raw  nature  oppress  us  just  in  proportion  to 
our  ignorance,  our  forgetfulness,  and  our  dullness. 
These  make  volcanoes  terrific,  climates  deadly,  and 
soils  sterile.  These  crowd  our  foreground  with  dull 
pupils,  venal  corporations,  and  applicants  for  divorce. 
So  long  as  we  are  too  stupid  to  conquer  it,  the  material 
world  is  a  perpetual  menace  to  our  false  security.  The 
best  flowers  of  art,  science,  and  virtue  are  always  in 
danger  while  ignorance  grumbles  underground  in  vol- 
canic unrest. 

But  is  not  this  very  danger  a  temptation  to  better 
work?  Like  a  prophet,  and  in  the  spirit  of  Carlyle,  the 
material  world  summons  us  to  be  up  and  doing.  To 
defend  our  homes  and  our  civilization  we  must  fight 
the  inroads  of  chaos  upon  our  little  trim  corner  of  the 
cosmos.  But  we  must  also  fight  against  our  own  self- 
satisfaction,  and  in  this  campaign  the  creative  worker 
with  bent  back  and  stem  face  is  still  our  leader.  He 
teaches  us  to  see  our  civilization  as  all  too  human  and 
man-made.  Fresh  from  contact  with  elemental  forces, 
he  finds  our  civilization  reeking  of  our  littleness  as  well 
as  of  our  valiant  endeavor.  He  finds  it  tame,  academic, 
formal;  for  it  repeats  itself  and  every  one's  self. 

In  contrast  with  all  this  smugness  of  so-called  civili- 


S6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

zation,  the  creative  worker  sees  nature  as  the  vast  store- 
house of  the  undiscovered.  What  is  now  "brute  fact," 
crude  matter,  animal  instinct,  contains  all  the  future 
possibilities  of  discovery  and  of  creation.  Reverence 
for  the  material  is  the  recognition  of  this  infinite  re- 
sourcefulness on  the  part  of  nature,  together  with  a 
manly  welcome  for  the  buffets  which  come  to  us  in 
work,  —  **tum  earth's  smoothness  rough,"  and  shape 
our  faculties  to  learn  new  truth. 

This  reverence  becomes  love  in  those  who  realize 
that  the  material  world  provides  what  most  of  all  their 
spirits  crave:  an  outlet  for  the  adventurous,  the  ro- 
mantic and  heroic  impulses.  To  set  them  afire,  the 
initial  check  and  friction  of  the  elemental  are  just  what 
is  needed. 

Why  have  I  linked  the  material  side  of  existence  with 
work  rather  than  with  play,  love,  or  worship?  Because 
play,  love,  and  worship  do  not  so  often  force  us  into 
humbling  yet  ultimately  refreshing  contact  with  what 
is  crude.  So  long  as  it  is  play  to  shingle  a  roof,  we  do 
not  notice  the  ache  of  our  cramped  legs,  nor  the  strain 
-upon  our  back  muscles.  When  these  elemental  dis- 
comforts force  themselves  upon  our  notice,  the  shin* 
gling-game  begins  to  feel  like  work.  When  love  meets 
resistance,  when  it  is  thwarted  by  the  screens  of  flesh, 
forgetfulness,  distance,  misunderstanding,  and  rivalry, 
it  too  begins  to  seem  like  work.  It  becomes  a  loyalty 
worth  working  for,  or  else  a  hateful  and  hopeless 
drudgery. 


THE  GLORY  OF  RAW  MATERIAL       57 

Because  this  is  so,  —  because  work  forces  us  to  stare 
almost  incessantly  at  the  material  world  and  gives  us, 
despite  its  fascinations,  so  huge  a  slice  of  humble  pie, 
—  we  are  always  in  danger  of  biting  off  more  than  we 
can  chew,  imbibing  more  ugliness  than  we  trans- 
form and  assimilate.  But  that  is  a  chance  which  we 
must  take,  all  the  more  cheerfully  because  history  has 
taught  us  that  honest  pessimism,  and  even  honest 
atheism,  bring  about  precious  reforms  in  conventional 
religion,  purifying  it  by  revolt  against  its  all  too  easy 
solution  of  the  riddle  of  existence.  If  you  become  a 
"materialist"  in  the  popular  sense,  you  may  arouse 
the  dormant  faith  of  your  age,  as  the  resistance  of  a 
tough  wad  adds  force  to  the  ignited  powder  behind  it. 
i  Nevertheless  our  long  bondage  to  the  elemental 
and  to  earth  is  not  always  good  for  us.  Our  self-abase- 
ment in  work  may  become  barren  and  dreary  because 
the  work  has  become  the  extinguisher  of  the  soul  which 
it  was  meant  decently  to  clothe.  To  be  spiritually 
abased  by  work  is  virtue;  to  be  spiritually  squashed 
by  work  is  failure.  Common  sense  should  teach  us  to 
take  off  the  kettle  when  it  boils,  rather  than  humbly 
wait  and  be  scalded  when  it  spits. 

Of  course  I  am  speaking  here  not  of  the  low-paid 
wa^e-eamers  who  are  often  weighed  down  and  blighted 
by  the  burdens  of  our  industrial  system.  I  am  con- 
cerned here  and  throughout  this  chapter  with  the 
*' pushing  man,"  relatively  well-to-do,  strong,  sound- 
sleeping,  and  of  voracious  appetite.    His  danger  is  to 


58  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

be  squashed  or  scalded  not  by  reason  of  poverty  or 
overstrain,  but  because  he  does  not  raise  his  head  from 
work  to  notice  the  ancient  and  beautiful  world  in 
which  he  lives.  Industrial  reform  will  not  help  him 
much.  What  he  needs  is  common  sense. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  RADIATIONS  OF  WORK 

The  good  intentions  with  which  hell  is  paved  are 
those  that  we  offer  as  excuses  for  inaction,  not  the 
intentions  which  remain  unfulfilled  despite  our  best 
efforts  to  make  them  good.  If  you  say,  **No,  I  have 
not  done  anything  this  month,  but  I  have  had  the 
best  of  intentions,"  you  have  condemned  all  the  days 
which  you  describe. \  But  if  you  say  nothing  about  your 
intentions,  make  no  apologies,  but  do  your  level  best, 
then  your  unfulfilled  intentions  speak  for  you  with 
the  tongues  of  men  and  angels.  Sincere  intentions  left 
unfulfilled  despite  our  best  efforts  are  perhaps  the 
most  valuable  parts  and  the  best  fruits  of  character. 
In  any  action  we  may  distinguish  two  parts :  First, 
what  the  person  himself  knowingly  and  intentionally 
does.  Second,  and  most  valuable,  the  unconscious  radi- 
ations which  emanate  from  any  one  in  full  activity. 
These  unconscious  products,  which  are  by  far  the  best 
of  our  output,  are  like  the  quiet  by-effects  of  a  college, 
— what  students  get  "just  by  rubbing  against  the  walls 
of  college  buildings."  Likewise  unconscious  are  the 
best  teachings  of  the  mother  who  serves  high  ideals 
and  intends  to  impart  them  to  her  children.  She  does 
not  deliver  just  those  goods,  yet  her  intentions  are  not 
fruitless.  The  good  which  she  does  may  issue  in  quite 


60  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

another  direction  from  that  which  she  planned,  yet  i£ 
she  had  not  made  that  apparently  futile  plan,  she  would 
not  have  achieved  her  unconscious  but  beneficent  in- 
fluence. 

This  explains  part  of  Luther's  insistence  that  of  him- 
self a  man  can  do  nothing,  that  his  efforts  are  nil  and 
God's  grace  all.  A  literal  reading  of  this  logic  would 
make  us  give  up  trying,  as  some  misguided  teachers 
have  advised.'  But  the  truth  seems  to  be  that  we 
should  give  up  expecting  to  accomplish  anything  just 
as  we  plan  it,  and  should  not  be  disappointed  if 

"All  we  have  hoped  for  and  darkly  have  groped  for' 
Come  not  in  the  form  that  we  prayed  that  it  should."  * 

Luther's  insistence  that  no  man  can  be  "saved" 
(i.e.,  can  accomplish  anything  that  he  really  wants  to 
accomplish)  by  **good  works,"  and  that  works  without 
faith  are  dross,  can  be  justified  if  we  are  not  too  literal 
in  our  understanding  of  his  terms.  Your  "works"  are 
what  you  do  self-consciously  and  with  the  effort  to 
assume  a  virtue  though  you  have  it  not.  But  your  real 
success  is  not  attained,  your  real  merit  is  not  limited, by 
the  pitifully  small  results  which  you  thus  achieve. 
From  the  standpoint  of  achievement  we  are  all  fail- 
ures, although,  as  Stevenson  says,  we  can  be  "faith- 
ful failures"  and  through  faithfulness  attain  such  suc- 
cess as  we  deserve. 
..    I  want  to  exemplify  the  value  of  our  unconscious 

*  From  Gelett  Burgess's  stirring  poem,  "Here  's  to  the  Cause." 


THE  RADIATIONS  OF  WORK  6i 

output  in  four  different  fields:  in  morals,  in  music,  in 
business,  and  in  science. 

The  unconscious  radiations  of  moral '  *  example ' '  don't 
work  when  the  man  is  trying  to  set  an  example.  Char- 
acter talks  when  we  are  silent.  A  doctor  wins  confid- 
ence, not  by  what  he  says,  but  by  his  methods,  what 
he  takes  for  granted,  his  unconscious  presence,  the 
foundations  of  his  certainty  laid  in  years  of  hard  work. 
For  a  similar  reason  the  authority  of  Miss  Jane  Addams 
springs  less  from  what  she  says  than  from  what  she 
has  done,  from  the  unconscious  influence  of  her  char- 
acter previously  known  to  her  audiences,  and  to  the 
whole  country. 

Tschaikowsky's  ^  method  of  musical  composition  illus- 
trates the  point,  but  here  the  unconscious  radiations  of 
work  illumine  first  of  all  the  worker  himself,  his  better 
self,  —  lost  to  sight  for  the  time  being  till  the  radiations 
search  him  out.  Tschaikowsky  found  that  his  inspired 
self,  the  creator  in  him,  often  got  lost  and  could  be 
found  only  through  the  lantern  of  hard  work,  —  a  lan- 
tern so  constructed  that  it  threw  no  light  behind  it, 
no  light  on  the  plodding  working  self.  He  found  that 
inspiration  for  composition  often  failed  him  wholly. 
For  weeks  at  a  time  he  could  force  out  nothing  that 
he  valued.  Yet  if  he  waited  patiently  or  impatiently 
for  the  inspiration,  it  did  not  come,  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  and  the  inspirations  of  genius  come  not  with 

*  M.  I.  Tchaikowsky,  Life  and  Letters  of  Peter  I    Tchaikowsky, 
John  Lane,  1908. 


62  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

observation.  He  found  that  he  must  go  to  his  desk 
each  day  and  do  something,  the  best  he  could,  to 
get  out  some  music.  Then,  in  time,  and  quite  unex- 
pectedly, rich  musical  ideas  would  come  pouring  into 
his  head  (whence,  God  only  knows)  faster  than  he 
could  write  them  down.  They  were  the  unconscious 
radiations  of  his  uninspired  daily  toil. 

Competent  business  men  have  told  me  that  the  best 
new  ideas  about  their  work  come  to  them  quite  unex- 
pectedly, often  on  a  holiday  when  their  minds  were  not 
trying  to  evolve  anything  of  the  kind.  Yet,  if  they 
take  a  permanent  holiday  no  such  inspirations  come. 
In  business  or  anywhere  else  the  best  fruit  of  work 
is,  of  course,  originality.  That  is  what  brings  money, 
fame,  lasting  usefulness,  and  it  is  what  every  worker 
wants  to  get  out  of  his  efforts.  But  all  originality,  all 
new  ideas  are  miracles  and  come  through  us  rather 
than  of  our  own  making. 

So  it  is  that  ideas  come  to  us  in  science,  "Any  one 
who  works  hard,**  says  Ostwald,  the  world-renowned 
physical  chemist  in  his  Natur  philosophies  "will  find 
something  new.**  But  this  "something**  is  usually 
found,  accidentally  as  we  say,  while  we  are  looking  for 
something  else.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  genius  results 
from  taking  infinite  pains.  It  produces  something  never 
looked  for,  yet  something  which  without  the  infinite 
pains  could  never  have  come  to  light. 

The  heretical  Scylla  is  to  suppose  that  we  are  **  jus- 
tified "  by  our  works  themselves,  achieved  with  our  own 


THE  RADIATIONS  OF  WORK  63 

naked  "self-made"  hands.  The  heretical  Charybdis 
?s  to  suppose  that  because  action  is  greater  in  its  by- 
products than  its  intention,  therefore  action  is  useless. 
Religious  tradition,  artistic  experience,  the  history  of 
scientific  discoveries,  the  natural  history  of  personal 
influence  in  families,  friendship,  school-teaching,  public 
life,  the  "best  ideas"  of  the  man  of  action,  —  all  these 
lines  of  evidence  converge  to  show  that  the  flower  of 
a  man*s  work  is  that  which  he  does  not  directly  intend 
or  deserve.  His  flashes  of  genius  spring,  —  he  knows 
not  how,  —  like  a  flower  from  the  deep  root  of  his  faith- 
ful labor.  He  labors  in  faith  that  some  good  not  now 
seen  or  certain  will  somehow,  somewhere  come,  if  only 
he  does  his  best. 

We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  "genius"  mostly 
in  the  field  of  the  fine  arts,  but  I  believe  that  all  the 
unconscious  by-products  of  faithful  work  are  fashioned 
from  the  stuff  of  genius.  Genius  has  its  part  in  indus- 
trial invention,  in  scientific  discoveries,  in  good  jokes, 
in  the  happy  grace  of  a  skillful  hostess.  It  plays  through 
our  disciplined  natures  to  express  the  higher  purposes 
of  the  race.  Conscientious  effort  to  win  virtue  or  succes? 
by  direct  attack,  is  for  most  men  the  necessary  precur- 
sor of  genius,  yet  the  effort  itself  is  clumsy  and  amateur- 
ish'. For  all  self-conscious  effort  to  do  better  than  one 
has  hitherto  done  involves  impersonation,  as  I  shall 
try  to  explain  more  fully  in  "Play"  (chapter  xvii)/ 
We  assume  the  virtue  not  yet  possessed  and  try  to 
play  up  to  the  character  which  we  aspire  to  attain. 


64  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Indeed,  from  one  point  of  view  this  is  the  whole  of 
morality.  But  in  our  highest  moments,  in  all  genius 
and  heroism,  whenever  we  are  swept  along  by  generous 
or  aspiring  impulse,  impersonation  and  self-conscious- 
ness vanish.  Somehow  the  deed  is  done,  and  as  we 
look  back  we  see  that  it  springs  out  in  the  direction  of 
our  previous  and  painful  efforts  to  do  right.  But  it 
astonishes  the  doer  almost  as  much  as  the  beholder. 
Who  can  say  that  Shelley  is  wrong  if  he  attributes  his 
moments  of  genius  to  a  Power  who  is  greater  than  him- 
self, yet  always  at  hand  as  answer  to  the  prayer  of 
utter  sincerity? 


CHAPTER  Vlir 

WORK  AND  LOYALTY:  THE  IDEALIZATION  OF  WORK 

I  WAS  returning  some  years  ago  from  a  medical  meet- 
ing in  Washington,  D.C.,  when  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  overhear  in  the  Pullman  smoking-compartment  a 
bit  of  conversation  between  the  best-known  doctor  and 
the  best-known  lawyer  in  Boston.  Both  had  been  tak- 
ing a  bit  of  vacation  at  the  capital.  Both  were  fierce, 
hungry  workers;  each  loved  his  profession  and  led  it. 

"I  hope,"  said  the  doctor  to  the  lawyer,  "that  you 
are  coming  back  to  your  work  with  fresh  enthusiasm." 

The  lawyer  laughed  and  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
then  puffed  his  cigar  and  looked  out  of  the  window  with 
a  grim  smile. 

"  Because,"  went  on  the  doctor,  "you  ought  to  set  us 
all  a  good  example  and  convert  us  to  righteousness. 
I  *m  coming  back  to  my  work  with  loathing^ 

"  What ! "  says  the  novice,  "don't  they  like  their  work 
after  all ;  if  they  do,  why  do  they  hate  to  come  back 
to  it?"  Yes,  that  *s  just  the  paradox  which  we  must 
get  used  to,  because  it  is  a  true  reading  of  the  facts. 
Th^se  men  loved  their  calling  as  soon  as  they  were  in 
harness,  yet  when  out  of  harness  they  sometimes  sank 
into  moods  of  revolt. 

"Out  of  harness!"  There's  a  deal  of  significance  in 
that  trivial  phrase.  For  all  work  is  a  yoke  and  a  harness. 


66  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

We  slip  it  off  every  night  (or  ought  to)  and  many  times 
we  hate  to  shp  it  on  again  in  the  morning.  We  slip  it 
off  (or  try  to)  when  we  get  round  to  our  Sundays  and 
vacations.  It  is  often  hard  to  put  it  on  again,  all  the 
harder  sometimes  if  the  vacation,  the  opera,  the  base- 
ball game,  has  relaxed  our  muscles  and  made  us  forget 
how  to  carry  the  burdens  and  responsibilities  of  our 
trade. 

This  paradox,  loving  a  task  on  the  whole  and  yet 
hating  it  when  we  are  *'out  of  harness,"  must  be  a  per- 
sonal experience  to  many  of  us  as  it  is  to  me.  I  have 
loved  my  work  intensely  and  for  many  years,  yet  I 
often  feel  an  absolute  repulsion  for  it  when  I  Ve  been 
"out  of  harness"  a  little  while.  I  have  all  the  anarchic 
caprices,  irrational  freaks,  and  dispirited  morning  lan- 
guors pictured  by  William  James:  "I  know  a  person, 
for  example,  who  will  poke  the  fire,  set  chairs  straight, 
pick  dust-specks  from  the  floor,  arrange  his  table, 
snatch  up  the  newspaper,  take  down  any  book  which 
catches  his  eyes,  trim  his  nails,  waste  the  morning 
anyhow  J  in  short,  and  all  without  premeditation,  simply 
because  the  only  thing  he  ought  to  attend  to  is  the  prep- 
aration of  a  lesson  in  formal  logic  which  he  detests. 
Anything  but  thatT'^ 

Such  a  mood  is  not  wholly  devilish.  If  we  look  coolly 

at  it,  even  while  we  are  shaking  it  off,  we  shall  see 

some  sense  in  our  revolt.  Although  a  man  ought  to 

make  a  harness  for  himself  and  wear  it,  although  only 

*  William  James,  The  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  p.  421. 


WORK  AND  LOYALTY  67 

that  harness  will  enable  him  to  support  the  responsi- 
bilities which  I  Ve  been  celebrating,  yet  he  should  he 
able  to  see  himself,  sometimes,  as  a  tiny  ant,  hurrying 
about  to  accomplish  an  ant's  proportion  of  the  world's 
work,  but  no  more.  Then  his  harness  looks  cheap  and 
mean. 

And  though  our  work  and  our  science  are  symbolic, 
as  I  believe,  of  an  eternal  and  glorious  destiny,  they  are 
literally  very  inglorious  and  insignificant.  Only  their 
intention,  only  the  vision  that  creates  and  sustains 
them,  is  great.  Our  work  is  the  best  we  know,  and  in  it 
as  in  a  ship  we  have  embarked  with  our  treasures;  but 
still  it  is  human-made,  and  bears  the  impress  of  our 
limitations.  Work  seen  literally  is  a  misfit,  and  now 
and  then  our  tired  eyes  see  it  so;  then  it  looks  like  a 
curse.  We  should  spurn  it  but  for  a  voice  within  us 
which  rebukes  literalism  and  calls  it  a  lie.  That  voice  is 
loyalty. 

Loyalty  is  a  force  that  holds  a  man  to  his  job  even 
in  the  moments  when  he  hates  it  and  sees  no  great 
significance  in  it.  When  this  kind  of  blindness  falls 
upon  us,  loyalty  supplies  a  new  method  of  guidance 
towards  the  substance  of  things  not  seen.  Like  all 
faith,  it  holds  to  the  visible  framework  of  daily  labor 
by  grim  or  by  smiling  determination.  It  bids  us  to 
be  prompt  at  the  office,  to  answer  all  letters  at  once, 
to  look  as  brisk  and  interested  as  we  can,  till  the  mood 
passes  and  the  familiar  objects  and  occupations  resume 
their  halos. 


68  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

The  modern  world  is  so  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
language  and  atmosphere  of  religion  that  it  is  hard  for 
most  people  to  recognize  religion  in  work.  Yet  I  am 
convinced  that  into  our  prosaic  and  practical  details 
of  business  life  we  often  unconsciously  transfer  that 
ancient  power  to  *' invest  the  world  with  its  own  di- 
vinity*' which  is  the  essence  of  faith,  though  not  of 
prayer.  The  faith  with  which  we  hold  to  the  routine  of 
our  calling  through  moods  of  discontent  and  disillu- 
sionment, is  not  altogether  different  from  the  faith  that 
makes  heroes,  saints,  and  martyrs,  and  gives  them 
vision  of  God  and  of  immortality. 

William  James  has  reminded  us  that  we  cannot  fix 
attention  on  a  point,  because  attention  won't  stay 
there:  — 

"Try  to  attend  steadfastly  to  a  dot  on  the  paper  or 
on  the  wall.  You  presently  find  that  one  or  the  other 
of  two  things  has  happened :  either  your  vision  has  be- 
come blurred,  so  that  you  can  see  nothing  distinct  at 
all,  or  else  you  have  involuntarily  ceased  to  look  at  the 
dot  in  question  and  are  looking  at  something  else.  But 
if  you  ask  yourself  successive  questions  about  the 
dot, — how  big  it  is,  how  far,  of  what  shape,  what  shade 
of  color,  etc.,  —  in  other  words  if  you  turn  it  over,  if  you 
think  of  it  in  various  ways  and  along  with  various  kinds 
of  associates,  —  you  can  keep  your  mind  on  it  for  a 
comparatively  long  time.*'  ^ 

Your  mind  circles  round  the  point,  connects  it  with 

»  Talks  to  Teachers.   1909,  p.  104. 


WORK  AND  LOYALTY  69 

other  points  (distant,  past,  or  future,  hypothetical 
and  ideal  variations,  imaginary  extensions  or  dimin- 
utions). As  soon  as  ever  you  begin  to  think  about 
anything,  you  begin  to  encircle  it  with  a  network  of 
context.  This  context  may  be  due  to  very  arbitrary 
associations,  sometimes  harmless  and  neutral,  some- 
times vicious  and  destructive.  The  wolfish  old  Tartar 
in  Tolstoy's  "Prisoner  in  the  Caucasus"  sees  around 
the  head  of  every  innocent  Russian  the  malignant  faces 
of  the  Russian  soldiers  who  once  killed  six  of  his  seven 
sons  and  forced  him  to  kill  the  seventh  with  his  own 
hand.  Though  the  face  of  a  Russian  may  beam  with 
kindness  and  childlike  purity,  that  is  lost  to  sight  in  the 
hovering  cloud  of  memories  which  the  old  Tartar  sees 
round  any  Russian.  Just  because  he  is  a  Russian 
the  old  Tartar  bristles  and  snarls  at  him  in  fury.  Hate 
at  first  sight  is  thus  as  possible  as  love  at  first  sight, 
if  one  sees  about  a  personality  so  intense  a  cloud  of 
hellish  witnesses. 

Emotional  life,  whether  of  enthusiasm  or  intense  dis- 
gust, depends  largely  upon  clouds  or  penumbrae,  which 
to  a  bystander  may  be  quite  invisible.  Now  and  then 
a  man  gets  down  to  Peter  Bell's  level,  where 

"A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
'  A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him 

And  it  was  nothing  more." 

But  most  of  us  see  above  the  primrose  a  cloud  of  associ- 
ations of  some  sort.  The  momentous  question  is  *  *  What 
sort,  and  how  far  does  it  reach?" 


70  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

The  best  grade  of  penumbra  is  native,  not  imported. 
It  belongs  on  him  that  wears  it  and  is  there  discov- 
ered as  well  as  created  by  the  onlooker's  faith.  Its 
colors  blend  with  the  wearer's  and  are  not  in  violent 
and  unnatural  contrast.  When  George  Meredith's 
sentimental  English  youth  fell  out  of  love  with  Vittoria, 
the  heroic  Italian  singer,  because  he  detected  a  whiff 
of  tobacco-smoke  in  her  hair,  he  did  what  the  old  Tar- 
tar did,  —  forced  down  a  wholly  unnatural  and  unfit 
shadow  upon  an  innocent  creature's  head. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  sees  in  his  towering 
factory  chimney  the  promise  and  potency  of  all  the 
business  that  is  coming  to  him  with  its  help,  when  he 
sees  rising  from  that  chimney  a  vision  of  the  position 
he  is  to  hold,  the  influence  he  is  to  wield,  the  improve- 
ments he  will  make  in  the  customs  of  his  trade  and  in 
the  politics  of  his  town,  —  that  sort  of  penumbra  really 
fits. 

Such  a  net  of  associations  clustering  around  a  person- 
ality is  made  up  of  the  things  he  stands  for.  Round  a 
President's  head  we  see  the  glories  and  the  perils,  the  pol- 
icies and  war-cries  of  the  United  States.  Round  a  baby's 
head  his  mother  sees  the  promise  of  his  future.  Crowned 
with  this  halo  of  future  glory,  the  baby  represents  far 
more  than  he  literally  is.  For  the  principle  of  halos  is  the 
principle  of  symbolism  and  of  representation,  whereby 
everything  means  more  than  it  shows  on  the  surface. 

There  is  nothing  unusual  or  meritorious  about  halo- 
making.  Everybody  goes  beyond  surfaces  to  some 


WORK  AND  LOYALTY  71 

extent.  But  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  differen- 
ces between  man  and  man  is  in  the  extent  and  quahty 
of  this  halo-making  faculty.  Three  artists  before  the 
same  landscape  will  paint  it  quite  differently,  not  so 
much  because  their  eyes  are  different  as  because  their 
interests  are  different.  Each  of  a  group  of  financiers 
facing  the  same  opportunity  will  see  different  possi- 
bilities in  it.  But  how  far  do  we  go,  how  wide,  how  ac- 
cessible is  the  field  of  opportunity  which  we  see  in  any 
business  venture,  any  bit  of  untamed  nature,  any  per- 
sonal or  political  situation?  If  you  know  that,  you 
can  measure  the  essential  differences  between  great 
capacity  and  moderate  or  small  capacity. 

The  halo  of  origins,  suggestions,  and  possibilities, 
about  a  person  has,  like  all  halos,  a  misty  edge,  growing 
dimmer  as  it  recedes  from  its  owner.  More  or  less  clearly 
we  recognize  that  the  halo  has  no  definite  end  or  mar- 
gin. If  we  are  busy  and  "practical '*  (as  we  usually  are) 
we  are  not  much  interested  in  this  misty  fact;  we  are 
soon  engrossed  in  putting  through  the  plans  which  are 
the  most  obvious  hints  from  the  halo.  At  any  time, 
however,  our  chatter  may  be  struck  dumb,  our  sleepy 
heads  may  be  shocked  broad  awake  by  a  sudden  con- 
sciousness of  what  this  mistiness  means.  It  means  that 
if  we  could  follow  the  whole  of  anybody's  halo  we-  should 
grasp  the  whole  universe  and  its  meaning.  For  every- 
body stands  for  the  universe,  and  is  a  small  edition  of 
it,  not  in  what  he  achieves  but  in  what  he  means. 
Everybody's  halo  really  stretches  to  infinity,  though 


72  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

our  eyesight  does  not.  Hence  we  are  always  staring 
and  blinking  at  the  whole,  though  we  can  distinguish 
only  a  tiny  fragment  of  it. 

No  man  who  loves  his  work  sees  it  without  its  halo; 
and  because  that  halo  really  has  no  end,  the  love  of 
work  may  at  any  moment  take  on  a  religious  tinge.  But 
whether  or  not  we  see  this  divinity  in  work,  it  is  there, 
and  we  all  live  on  its  surface,  upborne  by  it  as  by  the 
solid  earth. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK 

Payment  can  be  given  a  workingman  only  for  what 
some  other  man  might  have  done,  because  the  pay  is 
fixed  by  estimate  of  'Vhat  the  work  is  worth,"  i.e., 
what  you  can  get  other  people  to  do  it  for.  Hence 
you  never  pay  any  one  for  what  he  individually  does, 
but  for  what  **a  man  like  him,*'  —  that  wholly  ficti- 
tious being,  that  supposedly  fair  specimen  of  his  type 
and  trade,  —  can  be  expected  to  do. 

The  man  himself  you  cannot  pay.  Yet  any  one  who 
does  his  work  well,  or  gets  satisfaction  out  of  it,  puts 
himself  into  it.  Moreover,  he  does  things  that  he  can- 
not be  given  credit  for,  finishes  parts  that  no  one  else 
will  notice.  Even  a  mediocre  amateur  musician  knows 
that  the  best  parts  of  his  playing,  his  personal  tributes 
to  the  genius  of  the  composer  whom  he  plays,  are  heard 
by  no  one  but  himself  and  "the  God  of  things  as  they 
are."  There  might  be  bitterness  in  the  thought  that  in 
our  work  we  get  paid  or  praised  only  for  what  is  not 
particularly  ours,  while  the  work  that  we  put  our  hearts 
into  is  not  recognized  or  rewarded.  But  in  the  struggle 
for  spiritual  existence  we  adapt  ourselves  to  the  un- 
appreciative  features  of  our  environment  and  learn  to 
look  elsewhere  for  recognition.  We  do  not  expect  people 
to  pay  us  for  our  best.    We  look  to  the  approval  of 


74  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

conscience,  to  the  light  of  our  ideal  seen  more  clearly 
when  our  work  is  good,  or  to  the  judgment  of  God. 
Our  terms  differ  more  than  our  tendencies.  The  essen- 
tial point  is  that  for  appreciation  of  our  best  work  we 
look  to  a  Judge  more  just  and  keen-sighted  than  our 
paymaster. 
/  Nevertheless  there  is  a  spiritual  value  in  being  paid 
in  hard  cash.  For  though  money  is  no  measure  of  the 
individual  value  in  work,  it  gives  precious  assurance 
of  some  value,  some  usefulness  to  people  out  of  the 
worker's  sight.  Workers  who  do  not  need  a  money 
wage  for  the  sake  of  anything  that  they  can  buy  with 
it,  still  need  it  for  its  spiritual  value.  Doctors  find  this 
out  when  they  try  to  get  invalids  or  neurasthenics  to 
work  for  the  good  of  their  health.  Exercise  done  for 
exercise*  sake  is  of  very  little  value,  even  to  the  body, 
for  half  its  purpose  is  to  stimulate  the  will,  and  most 
wills  refuse  to  rise  at  chest- weights  and  treadmills, 
however  disguised.  But  our  minds  are  still  harder  to 
fool  with  hygienic  exercises  done  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
busy.  To  get  any  health  or  satisfaction  out  of  work  it 
must  seem  to  the  worker  to  be  of  some  use.  If  he  knows 
the  market  for  raffia  baskets  is  nil,  and  that  he  is  merely 
being  enticed  into  using  his  hands  for  the  good  of  his 
muscles  or  of  his  soul,  he  soon  gets  a  moral  nausea  at 
the  whole  attempt. 

This  is  the  flaw  in  ideals  of  studiousness  and  self- 
culture.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  self-culture  shall  seem 
good  to  President  A.  Lawrence  Lowell  or  to  some  kind 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  75 

neurologist.  The  college  boy  himself,  the  psychoneu- 
rotic herself,  must  feel  some  zest  along  with  the  labor 
if  it  is  to  do  any  good.  And  this  zest  comes  because 
they  believe  that  by  this  bit  of  work  they  are  "get- 
ting somewhere,'*  winning  some  standing  among  those 
whose  approval  they  desire,  serving  something  or  some- 
body besides  the  hired  teacher  or  trainer.^ 

I  once  set  a  neurasthenic  patient,  formerly  a  stenog- 
rapher, to  helping  me  with  the  clerical  work  in  my  office. 
She  began  to  improve  at  once,  because  the  rapid  return 
of  her  former  technical  skill  made  her  believe  (after 
many  months  of  idleness  and  gnawing  worry  about 
money)  that  some  day  she  might  get  back  to  work.  But 
what  did  her  far  more  good  was  the  check  which  I 
sent  her  at  the  end  of  her  first  week's  work.  She  had 
not  expected  it,  for  she  did  not  think  her  work  good 
enough.  But  she  knew  me  well  enough  to  know  that 
I  had  sworn  off  lying  in  all  forms  (even  the  most 
philanthropic  and  hygienic)  and  would  not  deceive  her 
by  pretending  to  value  her  work.  The  money  was 
good  for  what  it  would  buy;  it  was  even  better  because 
it  proved  to  her  the  world's  need  for  what  she  could  do, 
and  thus  gave  her  a  right  to  space  and  time  upon  the 
earth. 

*  A^  Arequipa,  Dr.  Philip  King  Brown's  sanitarium  for  the  tubercu- 
lous, near  Fairfax,  California,  this  principle  is  recognized  and  embodied. 
Dr.  Brown  has  succeeded  in  curing  patients  because  the  pottery  which 
his  patients  make  is  salable,  as  well  as  good  in  style  and  workmanship. 
Some  of  the  patients  need  the  money  which  their  work  earns,  but  they 
also  need  to  feel  their  touch  with  the  world  outside.  To  make  something 
which  will  sell  gives  them  courage,  self-respect. 


76  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

This  is  the  spiritual  value  of  pay.  So  far  no  one  has 
thought  of  so  convenient  and  convincing  a  way  to 
wrap  up  and  deliver  at  each  citizen*s  door  a  parcel  of 
courage  for  the  future,  and  a  morsel  of  self-respect  which 
is  food  for  the  soul. 

Gratitude,  given  or  received,  is  one  of  the  best  things 
in  the  world.  We  need  far  more  of  it  and  of  far  better 
quality.  Yet  I  have  never  read  any  satisfactory  account 
of  what  it  so  gloriously  means.  Its  value  begins  just 
where  the  value  of  pay  ends.  Thanks  are  personal,  and 
attempt  to  fit  an  adequate  response  to  the  particular 
service  performed.  Pay  is  an  impersonal  coin  which  has 
been  handed  out  to  many  before  it  reaches  you,  and 
will  go  to  many  others  when  it  leaves  you.  It  is  your 
right  and  you  are  not  grateful  for  it.  But  thanks  are  a 
free  gift  and  enrich  the  giver.  There  is  no  nobler  art 
than  the  art  of  expressing  one's  gratitude  in  fresh, 
unhackneyed,  unexaggerated  terms  which  answer 
devotion  with  fresh  devotion,  fancy  with  new  fancy, 
clarity  with  sincerity.  Artists  who  get  their  reward 
only  in  money  and  in  the  stale  plaudits  of  clapping 
hands  are  restless  for  something  more  individual.  They 
want  to  be  intimately  understood  and  beautifully  an- 
swered. For  such  gratitude  they  look  to  brother  artists, 
to  the  few  who  really  understand.  There  they  find  their 
best  reward ;  but  even  this  leaves  something  wanting. 
>  Why  is  it  so  notoriously  difficult  to  accept  thanks? 
Most  things  that  I  am  thanked  for  I  am  not  conscious 


1 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  77 

of  having  done  at  all.  Obviously  the  thanks  are  mis- 
directed. Or,  if  I  am  conscious  of  having  done  what 
the  thanker  is  grateful  for,  I  am  likewise  conscious  that 
I  only  handed  on  to  a  third  person  what  had  previously 
been  given  to  me.  I  learned  from  Smith  and  then  en- 
lightened Jones.  Smith  is  the  man  to  thank.  Or  again, 
one  is  thanked  for  simply  carrying  out  a  contract ;  but 
one  could  not  honorably  do  less.  Thanks  for  going 
along  the  usual  and  necessary  road  seem  gratuitous 
and  undeserved.  Or,  finally,  one  receives  gratitude 
for  what  one  did  with  joy;  that  seems  as  queer  as  being 
thanked  for  eating  one's  dinner. 

But  suppose  that  the  deed  one  is  thanked  for  was 
not  an  act  of  passing  along  what  came  originally  from 
another,  as  you  pass  money  in  a  street-car.  Suppose  a 
man  has  really  originated  something,  an  invention, 
a  poem,  a  statue.  He  hardly  claims  it  as  his,  for  he 
does  not  know  where  it  came  from.  He  did  not  "make 
it  up."  It  sprang  into  his  mind,  given  to  him  as  much 
as  if  he  had  received  it  from  a  friend.  He  does  not  feel 
that  he  is  the  one  to  receive  thanks.  The  thanks  should 
pass  through  him,  as  the  gift  did,  to  some  one  else,  — 
to  his  parents  who  gave  him  and  taught  him  so  much, 
to  his  race,  his  nation,  his  health,  his  friends,  his  oppor- 
tunities. That  is  where  it  all  came  from ;  that  is  where 
thanks  are  due.  But  each  of  these  influences  is  itself 
the  recipient  of  countless  other  influences.  Every  fact 
in  the  universe  depends  on  every  other  fact.  Ulti- 
mately, then,  not  he  but  the  universe  must  be  thanked. 


78*  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

He  deals  with  firms  and  employees,  but  he  looks  be- 
hind them,  over  their  shoulders,  and  re-directs  their 
thanks  elsewhere,  —  ultimately,  if  he  but  knew  it,  to 
the  World  Spirit.  One  may  not  remember  that  Spirit. 
One  often  does  not  bother  about  the  world's  work. 
Thinking  exhausts  some  people  and  fatally  confuses 
others.  But  if  one  thinks  at  all,  he  runs  up  hard  against 
the  world  plan,  and  finds  it  the  bulkiest  object  in  sight. 

The  unsentimental  male  American  as  I  have  de- 
scribed him  is  almost  morbidly  apt  to  deride  anything 
like  gratitude,  sentiment,  or  moralizing  in  relation  to 
himself  and  his  work.  "  No  joy  is  mine ! "  he  would  say; 
''what  do  you  take  me  for  anyway,  —  a  holy  roller?" 

He  is  just  as  quick  to  reject  the  idea  that  he  cares 
about  serving  anybody  or  anything.  He  may  admit 
that  he  wants  to  "make  good"  in  a  fair  and  square 
way,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  game.  But  "service," 
like  **joy,"  sounds  too  "stuck  up"  and  Pharisaical 
for  him. 

Nevertheless  I  firmly  believe  that  his  derision  is 
only  a  ruse  to  conceal  his  morbid  bashfulness  and 
oafish  sensitiveness.  For  in  point  of  fact  service  is  one 
of  the  things  that  pretty  much  everybody  wants, 
however  much  he  may  disguise  it  and  conceal  it  from 
himself.  I  have  never  seen  any  more  unsentimental 
and  raw-boned  being  than  the  American  medical  stu- 
dent; yet  he  is  simply  hankering  for  service.  Medical 
teachers   spread  .before   him   banquets   of   tempting 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  79 

"opportunities,"  rare  *' cases,"  "beautiful"  specimens, 
easy  chances  to  distinguish  himself  in  research  and  to 
absorb  his  medical  food  in  predigested  mouthfuls.  He 
often  remains  indifferent.  But  the  moment  you  give 
him  a  place  to  work  in  a  clinic,  to  serve  as  Dr.  Blank's 
fourteenth  assistant  in  a  hospital  where  good  work  is 
done,  he  will  jump  at  the  chance.  The  work  is  much 
harder  and  more  monotonous  than  his  regular  studies. 
Much  of  it  is  not  teaching  him  medicine.  He  has  to  go 
on  doing  Fehling's  test  for  sugar  and  trying  knee  jerks 
long  after  he  has  learned  the  trick.  He  has  to  measure 
stomach  contents,  to  weigh  patients,  to  bandage  legs, 
and  to  write  down  names  and  addresses  in  monotonous 
routine  day  after  day.  Yet  he  loves  the  work,  and  de- 
spite all  the  drudgery,  he  learns  far  more  medicine  by 
holding  down  an  actual  job  of  this  kind  than  by  lectures 
and  classes.  If  you  separate  out  the  instructive  por- 
tion of  his  day's  work  and  present  it  to  him  without 
assigning  him  any  regular  position  and  duties,  he  does 
not  like  the  work  so  well  or  learn  so  much. 

He  is  hungry  for  reality.  Service  as  an  assistant  is 
reality.  He  knows  that  something  genuine  is  occurring 
and  that  he  plays  a  real  part  in  it.  He  knows  that  he 
would  be  missed  and  that  things  would  go  wrong  if  he 
were  «iot  there.  He  senses  a  real  need  for  him  and  feels 
it  drawing  him  like  a  magnet.  At  the  medical  school 
his  classes  do  not  need  him,  though  he  is  supposed  to 
need  them.  Nothing  would  happen  if  he  were  not  there. 
He  feels  ghostly  and  unreal  like  the  lesson.    For  the 


80  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

lesson  is  a  copy  of  reality;  constantly  it  portrays  an 
imaginary  state  of  things:  — 

"If  you  find  a  man  unconscious,  if  you  examine  a 
tuberculous  lung  after  death,  if  you  give  one  half-grain 
of  strychnin,  if  you  wash  out  the  stomach,  such  and 
oUch  results  will  follow."  Almost  all  medical  teaching 
is  thus  blighted  with  unreality,  mildewed  with  time. 
Laboratory  work  seems  more  real,  but  even  laboratory 
work  is  usually  artificial,  a  make-believe.  You  are  not 
really  analyzing  medicines  in  search  of  possible  adul- 
terants. Nobody  wants  your  work.  There  is  no  tug  of 
the  world's  need  to  which  you  respond.  It  is  true  that 
in  laboratory  instruction  we  give  the  student  something 
more  or  less  like  the  real  conditions  of  life.  We  try  to 
set  him  to  work  as  if  he  were  holding  down  a  real  job. 
But  he  knows  that  in  fact  he  is  only  practicing  for  Self- 
improvement,  one  of  the  flimsiest  of  the  pretexts  by 
which  we  try  to  call  out  a  man's  energies. 

Extraordinarily  sound,  those  students'  instincts! 
They  are  bored  when  we  offer  them  opportunities  to  do 
what  is  easy  and  self-centered,  but  outside  the  current 
of  reality.  It  is  only  when  we  give  them  hard,  dry 
work  like  an  assistantship  in  a  clinic,  a  place  where  they 
can  accomplish  something  that  has  a  real  value  in  the 
actual  world,  that  they  fall  to  with  real  appetite. 

The  sense  of  somebody's  need  is,  I  believe,  the  most 
powerful  motive  in  the  world,  one  that  appeals  to  the 
largest  number  of  people  of  every  age,  race,  and  kind. 
It  wakes  up  the  whole  nature,  the  powers  that  leam 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  8i 

as  well  as  those  that  perform ;  it  generates  the  vigor  of 
interest  that  submerges  selfishness  and  cowardice;  it 
rouses  the  inventiveness  and  ingenuity  that  slumber 
so  soundly  in  students*  classrooms.  For  many  of  us, 
for  more  every  time  the  world  takes  a  step  in  the  right 
direction,  work  that  is  service  taps  a  great  reservoir  of 
power,  sets  free  some  of  our  caged  and  leashed  energy. 

Pay^  gratittide,  and  service^  as  ends  of  work,  have 
each  a  value,  though  not  of  exactly  the  sort  one  might 
expect.  How  about  success?  Financial  rewards  are 
nowadays  less  talked  about  than  the  general  prosperity 
which  they  express.  Civic  ideals  are  kept  in  the  fore- 
ground alike  by  "boosters,"  real  estate  men,  and  cham- 
bers of  commerce.  According  to  these  authorities  busi- 
ness success  means  a  flourishing  city  and  a  contented 
community.  To  help  build  up  a  fine  city  is  what  we  are 
asked  to  do  in  case  we  take  the  investment  offered  us. 
A  fine  city  is  an  efficiently-managed,  well-lighted  com- 
munity, with  plenty  of  schools,  parks,  and  churches. 
But  stop  a  moment.  What  is  the  use  of  such  a  place? 
When  we  have  built  and  finished  this  perfect  city,  with 
its  smooth-running  government,  then  at  last  its  crime- 
freed,  sanitary  streets  will  be  swept  and  garnished  all 
ready  to  begin,  —  what? 

It  is  hard  to  hear  any  answer.  Few  are  interested 
enough  even  to  attempt  one.  For  the  interest  of  civic 
reform  is  mainly  in  the  process  —  far  less  in  the  result 


82  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Boys  who  build  a  boat  or  a  play-house  usually  find  that 
there  is  far  more  fun  in  the  process  of  building  than  in 
using  the  finished  product.  So  it  is  with  the  reform  of 
a  slum  or  a  municipal  government.  The  best  of  it  is  in 
the  reforming.  We  shall  hardly  stop  to  notice  it  when 
it  is  perfect.  We  shall  take  it  for  granted,  as  we  do  the 
safe  delivery  of  the  letters  which  we  post,  and  be  off  on 
another  campaign.  Our  civic  goals  are  like  the  scented 
rushes  in  **Wool  and  Water."  The  most  beautiful 
ones  Alice  found  were  always  those  just  beyond  her 
reach.  Perfect  adaptation  to  environment,  which 
seems  to  be  what  the  sanitary  and  civic  reformers  aim 
at,  would  mean  absolute  stagnation,  —  attainment 
that  buds  no  more.   For  what  should  stir  us  further? 

"Well,  anyway,  to  reform  our  city  is  the  best  thing 
in  sight.  It  is  certainly  in  the  right  direction."  Ah, 
then  we  know  what  the  right  direction  is !  That  is  some- 
thing far  more  significant  than  any  single  step  in  civic 
progress.  If  we  know  the  true  direction,  we  can  point 
beyond  the  civic  models  to  something  towards  which 
they  are  on  the  road  and  get  our  satisfaction  all  along 
its  course. 

The  worship  of ' '  the  right  direction  "  is  a  fundamental 
motive  in  art  and  play  as  well  as  in  work.  Every  noble 
game  and  work  of  art  calls  for  others,  incites  to  pil- 
grimages, reforms,  and  nobler  arts.  Art  is  not  meant 
to  give  us  something  final ;  everything  in  it  is  pointing 
ahead  and  getting  its  justification  because  it  is  **in  the 
right  direction."    Everything  in  art,  as  in  civics,  gets 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  83 

the  courage  to  exist  and  to  push  on  because  of  its  read- 
iness to  be  corrected  by  experience  to  a  truer  version 
of  its  own  purpose.  Sincere  people  want  the  true  in 
their  work  as  well  as  in  their  thinking.  But  the  truth  is 
an  Infinite,  and  the  will  to  approach  it  is  an  infinite  in- 
tention. The  fruit  of  this  infinite  intention  would  be  our 
utter  prostration  of  self  before  the  vision.  **  Do  with  me 
as  thou  wilt."    *'Thy  will  not  mine  be  done." 

I  cannot  see  the  end  of  all  this.  I  see  reform  after 
reform  of  character  and  of  civilization,  progress  after 
progress  in  science  and  art,  rising  like  mountain  ranges 
one  behind  the  other.  But  there  is  no  conceivable 
sense  in  all  these  upheavals  if  they  are  mere  changes, 
mere  uneasy  shifts  in  the  position  of  a  dreaming  world- 
spirit.  To  make  sense  they  must  be  moving  in  a  single 
direction  fulfilling  a  single  plan. 

It  is  obvious  enough  that  all  work  is  supposed  to  ful- 
fill some  one's  plan,  —  the  worker's  plan  or  his  master's. 
It  is  good  for  something.  But  every  one  of  the  goods  we 
buy  with  our  work  is  itself  a  means  to  something  else, 
a  coin  with  which  to  purchase  something  more.  The 
goods  we  supply,  the  clothes,  food,  transportation, 
medicine,  knowledge,  inspiration  which  we  give,  are 
themselves  means  to  something  else,  perhaps  to  com- 
fort, health,  education,  courage.  These  again  are  means 
to  better  work,  to  civic  perfection,  to  family  happiness. 
But  these  once  more  are  in  themselves  as  worthless 
as  fiat  money  or  dolls  stuffed  with  sawdust  unless  there 
is  absolute  value  behind  them.    Happiness,  civic  per- 


84  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

fection,  love,  are  sometimes  named  as  the  ultimate  ends 
towards  which  the  activities  of  busy  men  and  women 
are  means,  but  anybody  who  experiences  any  of  these 
states  and  is  not  a  Buddhist  wallowing  in  vague  bliss 
finds  that  they  incite  us  to  new  deeds.  If  they  are  not 
soporific  drugs,  they  are  spurs  to  fresh  action. 

Taken  literally,  the  ideals  of  utility  and  civic  reform 
are  like  the  old  myth  which  explained  the  world's  sup- 
port as  the  broad  back  of  an  elephant.  Who  supports 
the  elephant?  He  rests  on  a  gigantic  tortoise;  and  who 
supports  the  tortoise?  No  answer  is  audible  in  the  busi- 
ness sections  of  our  cities  or  in  the  schoolrooms  or  in 
the  colleges.  The  church's  answer  is  derided  or  ignored 
by  a  large  fraction  of  us.  But  it  is  the  right  one ;  and  we 
shall  learn  to  listen  to  it  or  pay  the  penalty.  Govern- 
ment does  not  rest  ultimately  on  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  but  on  their  conformity  to  the  will  of  the 
world-spirit  which  makes  and  unmakes  civilizations. 

"Success"  in  industry,  in  art,  or  in  love  is  saved 
from  bitterness  and  disappointment  because  we  re- 
gard our  achievements  far  more  symbolically  than  we 
know,  and  rest  far  more  than  we  are  aware  upon  the 
backing  of  God. 

Assuming  that  in  every  one  there  is  an  infinite  and 
restless  desire  to  get  into  the  life  of  the  world,  —  to 
share  any  and  all  life  that  is  hot  and  urgent  or  cool  and 
clear,  —  we  can  tackle  this  infinite  task  in  two  ways:  — 
^    By  trying  to  understand  the  universe  in  the  samples 


THE  REWARDS  OF  WORK  85 

of  it  which  come  into  our  ken  and  to  draw  from  these 
bits  a  knowledge  which  typifies  and  represents  the 
whole.  That  is  science. 

By  trying  to  serve.  When  we  try  to  serve  the  world 
(or  to  understand  it),  we  touch  what  is  divine.  We  get 
our  dignity,  our  courage,  our  joy  in  work  because  of 
the  greatness  of  the  far-off  end.  always  in  sight,  always 
attainable,  never  at  any  moment  attained.  Service  is 
one  of  the  ways  by  which  a  tiny  insect  like  one  of  us 
can  get  a  purchase  on  the  whole  universe.  If  we  find 
the  job  where  we  can  be  of  use,  we  are  hitched  to  the 
star  of  the  world,  and  move  with  it. 


PART   II:  PLAY^ 


CHAPTER  X 

PLAYFULNESS,  SERIOUSNESS,  AND  DULLNESS 

Why  is  it  that  everybody  is  taking  play  so  seriously 
to-day?  Our  fathers  considered  it  permissible  within 
limits,  something  which  we  might  indulge  in,  some- 
thing necessary,  even,  for  young  people  in  order  that 
they  might  be  the  better  prepared  for  work.  **A11 
work  and  no  play,"  they  used  to  say,  **  makes  Jack 
a  dull  boy,"  —  dull,  of  course,  at  his  lessons  which 
were  supposedly  the  real  object  of  his  existence.  But 
despite  these  admissions  no  one  would  have  dreamed, 
a  generation  ago,  of  a  National  Playground  Associa- 
tion, or  of  groups  of  sober  adults  taking  counsel  to- 
gether in  prayerful  spirit  and  with  missionary  zeal, 
to  the  end  that  they  might  spread  abroad  the  gos- 
pel of  play!  To  our  fathers  that  would  have  sounded 
as  blasphemous  as  a  gospel  of  laxity,  as  absurd  as  a 
gospel  of  sweetmeats. 

Jack  has  been  permitted  (for  motives  of  economy 
and  of  hygiene)  to  play,  but  this  indulgent  proverb 
was  framed  to  excuse  only  the  young.  There  is  no  hint 
that  married  women  and  professors,  clergymen  and 
bankers  in  business  suits,  are  also  prone  to  dullness, 
or  worse,  if  they  fail  to  frisk  and  gambol  on  the  green. 
Yet  here  we  are  to-day,  first  broadening  our  idea  of 
play  till  it  spells  recreation,  then  dreaming  of  public 


90  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

recreation  as  the  birthright  of  all  men,  women,  and 
children,  —  finally  venturing,  since  Miss  Addams's 
great  book,  "The  Spirit  of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets," 
to  think  of  recreation  as  something  holy. 

What  is  it  that  has  come  over  us  so  swiftly  and  so 
silently?  Can  we  deliberate  about  play,  devote  time, 
money,  and  brains  to  working  it  up,  without  losing  our 
sense  of  humor  and  of  proportion,  —  without  stulti- 
fying ourselves?  I  hope  to  answer  these  questions  with 
a  "  Yes  "  that  has  some  ring  to  it.  Would  it  might  echo 
and  pass  on  to  you  a  deep  and  rallying  note  from  the 
spirit  of  youth  and  from  the  city  streets,  both  of  which 
I  love! 

Take  first  the  question  of  playfulness  in  its  relation 
to  seriousness.  Are  they  opposites?  Need  they  sup- 
press each  other?  Shall  we  become  a  less  serious  people, 
a  more  flippant  and  trifling  people,  if  we  grow  more 
playful? 

The  answer  is  this:  Seriousness  is  so  fundamental  a 
trend  of  the  soul  that  it  can  accompany  any  of  the 
soul's  efforts.  One  can  play  seriously,  as  children,  base- 
ball experts,  and  chess-players  do.  One  can  be  both 
serious  and  funny :  witness  G.  B.  Shaw  ( passim),  Lowell 
in  the  "  Biglow  Papers,"  and  the  fool  in  "Lear."  Work, 
love,  and  even  prayer  can  be  either  flippant  or  serious. 

But  just  because  seriousness  is  universally  accept- 
able as  an  ingredient,  it  tastes  harsh  and  crude  when 
we  get  it  alone.    Bare  and  unadorned  seriousness  is 


PLAY    AND   ITS   ENEMIES  91 

indistinguishable  from  dullness.  Like  the  sky,  we  al- 
ways want  it  as  a  background.  But  put  it  in  the  fore- 
ground, take  away  all  else,  and  seriousness  becomes  a 
void  or  a  mist  quenching  animation,  vivacity,  and 
effort. 

This  should  not  surprise  us,  for  seriousness  is  only 
one  of  many  things  which  are  essential  as  backgrounds, 
but  disastrous  as  foregrounds.  Any  bodily  function, 
breathing,  for  example,  is  another  such  background.  It 
should  rarely  be  suspended,  but  it  should  never  ob- 
trude itself.  Apoplectic  old  persons,  whose  breathing 
has  become  a  serious  and  noisy  business,  try  at  least 
to  conceal  the  fact  as  best  they  can.  They  do  not  pride 
themselves  on  their  puffing  and  wheezing.  Only  when 
a  man  is  near  to  death  and  has  left  behind  him  the 
powers  and  beauties  which  make  him  human,  do  we  say, 
*'Yes,  he  is  still  breathing.'* 

Seriousness  simon-pure  is  a  residual  state  into  which 
one  relapses  when  one  has  nothing  better  to  do  or  say. 
The  preacher  who  cannot  kindle  us  for  righteousness, 
or  summon  us  to  repentance,  or  re-create  in  us  some 
vision  of  the  living  Christ,  falls  back  on  pure  serious- 
ness, that  is  on  dullness.  No  impassioned  speaker  or 
skillful  fighter  is  ever  thought  of  as  "serious."  We  take 
his  seriousness  for  granted  like  his  good  intentions,  be- 
cause it  has  flowered  into  something  more  vital.  Seri- 
ousness at  the  funeral  of  a  stranger  may  be  all  that  is 
left  us,  if  we  can  feel  no  poignancy  of  grief,  or  triumph- 
ant love,  but  see  only  the  blackness  of  it  all.  For  to  be 


92  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

merely  serious  is  to  be  as  colorless  as  those  somber 
trappings,  which  are  so  often  a  libel  of  the  glorious 
dead. 

No  less  somber  is  the  *' serious"  editorial,  sermon, 
or  essay  written  by  one  who  cannot  be  crisp  nor  richly 
ornate  nor  smooth  and  musical,  nor  sarcastic  nor  pro- 
phetic nor  minatory.  Of  course  seriousness  may  and 
usually  does  underlie  all  these  moods,  but  if  we  get 
down  to  the  threadbare  and  colorless  solemnity  of  the 
merely  serious  we  reach  the  soporific. 

Sleep,  indeed,  is  the  blood  brother  and  dearest  friend 
of  seriousness. 

*'Yes,  we  are  always  serious  at  breakfast,"  said  a 
charming  Canadian  girl  at  an  uproarious  Californian 
breakfast-table  in  the  summer  of  1904.  "I  don't  see 
how  you  can  laugh  so  much  in  the  morning.  Grand- 
mamma sometimes  smiles  at  breakfast,  but  then  you 
see  she  gets  up  at  half-past  five." 

Seriousness  is  in  itself  no  crime.  Most  of  us  pass 
through  two  zones  of  it  daily,  on  our  way  to  sleep  at 
night  and  back  again  in  the  morning.  It  is  a  natural 
phenomenon  when  the  machinery  of  the  mind  is  run- 
ning down,  or  not  yet  in  full  play.  But  in  Heaven's 
name  let  us  make  no  virtue  of  it.  Let  us  decently  con- 
ceal it,  like  our  yawns,  for  (with  apologies  to  John  Mil- 
ton) it  is  only  a  kind  of  "linked  yawning  long  drawn 


out." 


Unfortunately  for  all  such  good  resolutions,  this 
form  of  sleepiness,  unabashed  and  chronic,  is  apt  to 


PLAY  AND   ITS  ENEMIES  93 

invade  every  corner  of  the  day.  It  will  not  be  confined 
to  the  breakfast  hour,  nor  to  the  mysterious  and  silent 
watches  of  the  night,  when  the  editorials  of  morning 
papers  are  written.  What  is  this  melancholy  and  crest- 
fallen line  of  persons,  whom  I  see  moving  along  Beacon 
Street  or  Commonwealth  Avenue,  towards  the  heart 
of  the  city,  a  little  before  nine,  in  the  crisp  and  frosty 
morning?  So  mechanical  and  spiritless  is  their  gait 
as  they  plod  along  that  one  might  fancy  them  mem- 
bers of  the  sad,  exploited  proletariat,  crushed  by  over- 
work, exhausted  by  want  of  sleep.  In  fact  they  are 
prosperous  bankers  and  lawyers  on  their  way  to  busi- 
ness, and  the  only  trouble  with  them  is  that  they  have 
just  lapsed  into  being  serious  and  serious  only.  It  has 
never  occurred  to  them  that  walking  can  be  anything 
better  than  a  means  of  sober  progression.  Poetry  in 
walking?  Don't  suggest  that  to  practical  men.  They'll 
think  you  a  dangerous  character. 

Well ;  demonstration  is  better  than  argument.  Look 
at  that  four-year-old  walking  to  Ms  business  at  the 
same  hour  in  the  morning,  and  improvising  rhythms 
not  only  with  his  legs,  but  with  every  animated 
muscle.  His  themes  are  suggested  by  the  curbstone, 
the  granolithic  pavement,  or  the  morning  itself.  He 
is  not  merely  fooling.  The  serious  intention  of  getting 
somewhere  underlies  all  his  skips  and  dances;  he  has 
on  the  whole  a  direction,  but  he  is  not  merely  progress- 
ing like  most  of  us  "serious"  walkers.  The  rhythm  of 
his  steps  is  not  like  his  elder's,  a  stern  barbaric  tom-tom. 


94  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

bare  and  monotonous.  It  is  flexible  and  various;  it 
becomes  hopping  staccato  or  sliding  legato  y  as  his  mood 
demands.  It  is  not  bound  to  a  single  tempo,  but,  like 
the  winds  of  the  spirit,  it  is  slow  and  lingering,  or  fast 
and  furious.  Could  any  picture  be  more  moving,  and 
yet  more  humiliating,  to  heavy  adults?  Surely  some 
future  '* Golden  Treasury  of  Moving  Pictures"  will 
contain  a  reproduction  of  that  exquisite  rhapsody 
called  **  Steps  Taken  While  Crossing  Harvard  Bridge 
at  School  Time,*'  by  Lyve  Chylde,  Esq.,  —  a  truly 
moving  lyric  composed  in  his  fifth  year! 

But  why  is  it  that  almost  all  the  best  pictures  in 
that  Golden  Treasury  of  lyric  motions,  which  each  of 
us  is  compiling  in  his  memory,  are  composed  before  the 
thirteenth  year?  Simply  because  the  child  is  still  alive 
and  trailing  clouds  of  poetry  as  he  walks,  while  we 
"serious"  adult  walkers  are  half  dead  or  half  asleep. 
Our  creative  energies  are  domiciled  elsewhere,  like  ab- 
sentee landlords,  far  from  the  tenements  of  our  clay. 
Yet  it  is  not  always  so.  I  have  seen  a  man  who,  even 
under  the  responsibilities  of  the  highest  office  in  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  kept  his  soul  fresh 
and  alive  in  his  moving  body.  One  of  the  pictures  that 
I  treasure  in  memory  is  the  figure  of  Governor  Roger 
Wolcott  walking  to  the  State  House  in  the  morning. 
He  was  magnificently  alive  and  therefore  creative. 
With  every  step  he  was  composing  triumphant  martial 
music.  I  could  almost  hear  the  themes  as  I  walked 
behind  him.    He  little  knew  "what  argument  his  gait 


PLAY  AND   ITS  ENEMIES  95 

to  his  neighbor's  creed  had  lent."  Many  others  must 
be  thanking  him  to-day,  if  not  with  their  lips  yet  cer- 
tainly in  their  lives.  For  in  his  established  maturity 
he  radiated  vigor  and  abundance  like  a  happy  child. 

I  wonder  how  many  of  us  now  living  can  bear  such 
a  comparison?  One  I  know  who  can:  a  doctor  in  Chi- 
cago whose  American  lineage  stretches  far  back  of  the 
Mayflower,  back  of  any  pale-faced  newcomer  to  this 
continent.  I  do  not  forget  that  as  doctor  and  as  civic 
leader  he  has  put  Chicago  and  the  whole  country 
deeply  in  his  debt.  But  my  memory  picture  of  him 
(and  yours  if  you  know  him,  as  you  probably  do)  will 
live  to  inspire  and  rebuke  us  even  when  we  forget 
Chicago  and  civics  and  medical  ideals.  For  they  are 
only  part  of  life,  while  our  friend  F.  is  the  very  incar- 
nation of  life  as  he  moves  in  the  city  streets.  He  brings 
the  open  country  with  him  and  the  untarnished  free- 
dom of  mountain  air.  You  can  learn  both  "the  cause 
and  the  cure  of  civilization"  if  you  will  walk  with  him 
on  Michigan  Avenue;  for  nothing  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion has  cramped  him,  not  even  its  "serious"  clothes. 

What  an  incubus  we  (males)  carry  with  us  in  the 
dull  and  solemn  monotony  of  our  clothes!  They  are 
serioifs  as  the  school  history  of  England  used  in  **  Alice 
in  Wonderland,"  to  dry  the  wet  company  about  the 
pool  of  tears.  "It's  the  dryest  thing  I  know,"  said  the 
Dodo.  Our  garments,  we  boast,  are  quiet,  staid,  and 
unobtrusive;  yes,  like  the  mien  of  the  drooping  horse 
in  the  treadmill !  But  not  because  any  one  really  likes 


96  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

them.  It  is  simply  because  we  are  too  stupefied  by 
custom,  too  much  cowed  by  the  threat  of  fashion,  to 
do  otherwise  than  as- our  neighbors  do.  Who  can  blame 
us?  To  put  a  feather  in  our  cap  might  lose  us  our  job, 
and  there  are  many  better  causes  for  self-sacrifice  than 
dress  reform.  But  let  us  never  again  insult  children  or 
childlike  races  by  inviting  them  to  step  up  to  our  level 
and  become  as  dull  and  ugly  as  we  are  in  our  gait,  our 
dress,  and  our  behavior.  Let  us  clearly  recognize  that 
we  stepped  down  to  a  lower  level  when  we  gave  up 
playfulness  and  adopted  the  merely  serious  carriage  and 
the  "quiet"  clothes  of  the  modern  civilized  adult. 

Let  us  cease  to  blaspheme  against  the  spirit  of  eter- 
nal youth  by  supposing  (as  Karl  Groos  ^  does)  that  Play 
means  chiefly  a  preparation  for  the  "serious"  work  of 
life.  Whatever  has  seriousness  as  its  dominant  note  is 
a  senile  degeneration,  a  sad  relapse  from  the  healthy, 
adventurous  playfulness  of  childhood. 

Worst  of  all,  perhaps,  is  our  habit  of  associating 
morality  with  a  drab  and  bleak  solemnity.  Why  should 
we  confuse  morality,  the  stuff  of  which  heroes  are  made, 
with  the  dead-and-alive  tissues  of  seriousness?  Perhaps 
it  may  be  as  Joseph  Lee  surmises  that  the  grim  "prac- 
tical" determination,  which  we  have  come  to  associate 
with  Puritanism  and  "morality,"  was  originally  an 
armor-of -proof  which  we  put  on  temporarily  for  battle 
against  the  Cavaliers,  and  then  in  a  fit  of  absent- 
mindedness  forgot  to  take  off,  like  a  tired  man  who 

»  The  Play  of  Man,  pp.  2,  168,  and  passim.  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  1908, 


PLAY  AND   ITS  ENEMIES  97 

drops  asleep  with  his  b<x)ts  on.  Perhaps  there  was 
once  real  use  in  the  stiff,  ugly  armor  miscalled  serious- 
ness. Perhaps  it  served  to  scare  the  enemy  or  to  di- 
minish the  appetite  for  everything  but  battle,  and  so 
save  costly  supplies. 

Our  present  business,  in  any  case,  is  to  divorce 
morality  from  dullness.  God  never  put  them  together. 
If  in  the  past,  for  temporary  and  specific  purposes, 
man  has  brought  them  together,  it  is  now  man's  duty 
in  the  service  of  eternal  ends  to  keep  them  apart. 
Would  to  Heaven  this  book  might  sever  them  once  for 
all! 

We  have  begun  to  make  the  separation,  else  we  never 
could  have  initiated  to-day's  revival  of  interest  in  play. 
In  this  interest  we  have  come  to  recognize  that  moral- 
ity need  not  be  dull,  and  what  is  more,  that  it  must 
be  sometimes  playful.  We  are  beginning  to  take  play 
seriously  as  all  children  do,  yet  without  forgetting 
that  it  is  play  and  not  work  or  worship.  This  brings 
us  back  to  our  starting-point  both  in  this  chapter 
and  in  life.  We  need  not  be  afraid  of  taking  play 
seriously  so  long  as  we  distinguish  seriousness  from 
dullness.  What  is  more  enchanting  than  the  serious- 
ness of  child's  play,  —  the  "top-heavy  solemnity  "  with 
which  he  applies  himself  to  piling  sand  into  a  bucket 
and  emptying  it  out  again.  Yet  he  is  never  dull,  no 
matter  how  impressive  his  seriousness.  It  is  the  tired 
adult  who  is  always  prone  to  relapse  into  dullness  in 
his  gait,  his  talk,  and  his  dress. 


CHAPTER  XI 
PLAY,   RECREATION,  AND  THE  OTHER  ARTS 

With  the  decline  of  the  mistaken  respect  for  mere  "se- 
riousness" (which  is  either  congenital  dullness  or  sim- 
ple sleepiness  exposed  in  public  view)  we  are  to-day 
cultivating  play  instead  of  merely  permitting  it.  We 
want  it  recognized  in  schools  (and  ultimately  in  col- 
leges) as  an  essential  part  of  the  curriculum.  Why 
should  it  be  allowed  to  grow  up  like  a  weed  outside  the 
garden  of  childhood?  Froebel  knew  better;  he  put 
play  in  the  very  center  of  that  garden.  To-day  we  see 
a  long  procession  of  educators,  social  workers,  munic- 
ipalities, and  churches  tardily  trailing  behind  Froebel, 
quite  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  he  is  their  leader.  Buv 
their  direction  is  right.  At  last  they  are  on  the  move, 
determined  to  put  play  where  it  belongs  because  they 
believe,  with  Stevenson,  in  the  duty  of  happiness  and 
in  the  destiny  of  man  while  serving  his  God  **to  enjoy 
Him  forever.'*  We  want  to  diminish  the  amount  of 
submerged  **busy"  work  and  to  expunge  all  desperate 
and  hopeless  work;  we  want  to  see  fun  and  games 
playing  through  it,  as  heat  lightning  plays  through 
heavy  clouds. 

I  will  not  be  entangled  at  this  point  in  any  liaison 
with  fascinating  definitions.  I  know  that  one  can  de- 
fend a  definition  of  work  which  will  include  all  that  I 


PLAY  AND  ART  99 

mean  by  play;  but  I  think  that  it  is  more  convenient 
to  distinguish  the  two.  I  know  a  few  rare  people  who 
can  touch  any  dull  job  with  a  magic  which  turns  it 
into  sparkling  play.  I  am  quite  aware  that  it  is  the 
spirit  which  we  bring  with  us,  not  the  necessities  or  laws 
of  nature,  which  labels  certain  things  *'Work"  and 
others  "Play."  Along  comes  a  blithe  and  bird-like 
spirit,  picks  off  all  the  work-labels  from  monotonous 
tasks  (such  as  typewriting,  book-keeping,  and  chart- 
making),  sticks  play-labels  upon  them  all  and  proceeds 
to  make  their  new  titles  good.  With  such  an  example 
daily  before  my  eyes,  I  am  not  likely  to  forget  that 
radiant  souls  can  change  the  gray  of  work  to  the  golden- 
green  of  play. 

Mindful  of  this  exhilarating  fact,  I  nevertheless  re- 
cognize that,  for  most  of  us,  work  and  play  often  split 
apart  and  call  for  separate  names.  Fiddling  is  good,  but 
not  while  Rome  burns.  Why  not?  Because  fiddling, 
just  at  that  juncture,  may  result  in  the  abolition  of  all 
future  fiddling  through  the  combustion  of  fiddles, 
fiddlers,  and  their  audiences.  Nero,  I  suppose,  retired 
to  a  safe  distance  before  he  began  his  historic  perform- 
ance, but  not  all  fiddlers  can  get  away  in  time.  Some- 
body must  stay  and  put  out  the  fire,  which  is  work. 
We  work  in  part  because  we  must,  in  part  because  we 
have  not  got  what  we  want  and  are  divided  into  a  rest- 
less or  unsatisfied  present  and  a  yearned-for  goal  in  the 
future.  But  in  play  we  possess  what  we  want.  The  ten- 
sion of  present  against  future  is  released.   Definitions, 


100  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

educators,  and  all  of  us,  then,  must  recognize  that  play 
has  a  soul  of  its  own  and  that  Jesus  played  in  the  streets 
of  his  native  town.  ^ 

We  have  ceased  to  think  of  play  chiefly  as  an  indul- 
gence, as  a  loosening  of  bonds,  or  even  as  a  pleasure.  We 
have  begun  to  admire  it  not  only  as  recreation,  but  as 
re-creation.  That  idea  makes  us  open  our  eyes,  for  any- 
thing that  can  make  us  over  anew  calls  out  the  respect 
even  of  a  utility-ridden  age  like  ours.  Even  our  Puritan 
ancestors  would  have  hastened  to  a  healing  spring  if 
they  had  believed  in  it,  and  so  we  go  tumbling  over  each 
other  to  learn  recreation  when  we  hear  that  it  can  renew 
our  power  to  work.  Great  is  the  power  of  a  hyphen!  If 
play  is  not  only  recreation  but  re-creation,  why  then 
it  is  to  be  bom  again  (a  wholly  orthodox  procedure) 
and  better  born.  It  becomes  a  form  of  applied  eu- 
genics. Perhaps  after  rebirth  we  may  go  back  to  our 
work  with  deeper-seeing  eyes.  We  may  even  be  less 
"stupid  in  the  affections.'*  Play  recommends  itself 
more  highly  when  we  see  it  from  this  point  of  view.  We 
begin  to  think  there  may  be  something  in  it  besides 
fooling. 

That  mighty  engine,  the  hyphen,  which  like  some 
giant  telescope  has  helped  us  to  see  new  worlds,  new 
freedom,  spring-time  and  rejuvenation  in  the  familiar 
word  "recreation,"  can  give  it  yet  another  glory.    For 

>  "We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced ;  we  have  mourned 
unto  you  and  ye  have  not  lamented."  Matthew  xi,  17. 


PLAY  AND  ART  loi 

what  is  it  that  art,  music,  literature,  drama  do  for  us? 
Is  it  not  the  re-creating  of  jaded,  humdrum  lives?  Art 
carries  us  off  into  a  far  country,  more  beautiful,  more 
poignant,  more  tragic,  perhaps  more  humorous  and 
sparkling,  perhaps  nobler  and  more  heroic,  than  is 
shown  us  in  the  workshop  or  the  home.  We  emerge  re- 
freshed by  this  intense  experience,  and  for  a  few  pre- 
cious minutes  we  look  upon  the  world  as  if  our  eyes  had 
never  been  dulled  and  stupefied  by  repetition  and  inat- 
tention, never  lost  the  child's  divine  power  of  surprise. 

Art  and  play,  then,  fulfill  the  same  function,  provide 
us  the  same  refreshment.  Moreover,  they  are  both  their 
own  excuse  for  being.  In  work,  and  to  some  extent  in 
love,  we  are  building  for  the  future ;  we  are  content  to 
save,  to  sacrifice,  and  to  repress,  for  the  sake  of  a  "far- 
off  divine  event.'*  But  in  all  art,  including  the  variety 
called  play,  we  anticipate  heaven  and  attain  immediate 
fruition:  we  give  full  rein  to  what  strains  against  the 
leash.  Subject  to  the  rules  of  the  game,  or  the  rules 
of  the  art,  we  let  our  energies  go  at  full  gallop.  We 
utter  ourselves,  like  a  schoolhouse  turned  inside  out  for 
recess.  You  know  the  sound ! 

Play  and  art,  I  believe,  are  essentially  one;  beauty 
lives  in  each,  and  though  the  beauty  of  athletics  or  of 
whist  is  not  always  quite  obvious,  it  is  no  more  obscure 
than  the  beauty  of  tragedy  or  of  rhyme.  Artificial  they 
all  are;  an  outlet  for  the  cramped  human  spirit  they  all 
furnish. 


102  WHAT   MEN  LIVE  BY 

Luckily  for  my  present  thesis,  dancing  has  lately 
come  so  much  to  the  fore  that  our  minds  are  prepared 
for  the  transition  from  art  to  athletics  and  play.  Any- 
body can  see  without  an  opera-glass  that  dancing  is  at 
once  play,  art,  and  athletics.  So  is  baseball,  though  I 
fear  that  some  of  my  readers  have  not  been  regular 
enough  in  their  attendance  upon  the  exhibitions  of  our 
greatest  national  art  to  thrill  with  recollection  as  I  men* 
tion  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  line-drive  over  short 
stop,  and  the  noble  dignity  of  the  curved  throw  from 
third  to  first.  Nothing  in  the  art  of  dancers  like  Isa- 
dora Duncan  is  more  beautiful  than  the  habitual  mo- 
tions of  ball-players  as  they  throw,  strike,  catch,  or 
slide.  Of  course  beauty  is  not  the  whole  of  baseball  nor 
of  any  art.  There  are  also  significance,  heroism,  sus- 
pense, response.  Also  there  are  serviceable  materials, 
such  as  catgut,  pigskin,  horsehair,  oil-paint,  grease- 
paint, printer's  ink,  voices,  muscles,  whereby  spiritual 
meanings  are  expressed  and  conveyed  from  the  artists 
who  create  to  us  the  "creative  listeners"  in  the 
audience. 

We  get  fun  and  sometimes  health  from  play  and  from 
some  other  arts ;  but  if  any  reader  thinks  that  athletic 
games  exist  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  fun,  let  him  turn  for 
a  moment  to  another  field  of  art  and  look  over  my 
shoulder  at  the  face  of  the  painter  or  musician  while 
I  inflict  upon  him  that  ancient  painful  congratulation: 
**What  a  pleasure  it  must  be  to  you,  Mr.  Genius,  to 
produce  so  much  beauty."   Now  watch  his  effort  to 


PLAY  AND  ART  103 

cover  with  a  smile  his  pitying  contempt  for  your  green- 
horn's ignorance.  **  Pleasure?  Yes,  but  at  what  a  cost ! " 
Art  is  grinding  hard  work,  much  of  the  time;  so  is 
football ;  and  but  for  this  arduous  element,  half  its  at- 
traction to  the  youth  would  be  gone.  He  wants  what  is 
hard,  adventurous,  and  therefore  exhilarating.  Things 
soft  and  easy,  like  listening  to  lectures,  or  passing 
college  examinations,  do  not  attract  him. 

My  thesis,  then,  is  this:  Play  is  at  least  one  quarter 
of  life  and  love  another  quarter,  hence  "conduct*'  in 
Matthew  Arnold's  sense  cannot  be  three  quarters  of 
life.  But  play,  the  quarter  which  concerns  us  now, 
means  recreation,  and  this  is  also  the  essential  function 
of  art.  Play  is  one  type  or  aspect  of  art,  a  fleeting, 
fragile  improvisation  in  children  oftentimes,  a  sternly 
disciplined  construction  in  games  like  chess,  football,  or 
aviation.  But  like  other  arts  it  is  at  all  times  relatively 
complete  in  itself.  It  is  not,  like  washing,  gymnastics, 
or  telephones,  a  means  to  life.  It  is  life  itself,  striving 
quixotically  for  immediate  perfection,  breaking  for  a 
moment  into  perishable  blossoms. 
^.  It  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  the  noblest  and 
wisest  men  in  America  still  think  of  athletics  chiefly 
as  a  means  to  health  and  morality.  College  presidents 
are  wont  to  praise  the  sound  body  chiefly  because  they 
consider  it  a  means  to  mental  soundness.  They  think 
of  athletics,  and  even  of  dancing,  as  a  good  method 
to  build  up  the  body  and  divert  sexual  energy  from 


104  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

vicious  outlets.  -  That  athletics  and  dancing  may  be 
means  to  these  ends  is  true.  It  is  also  true  that  cows  are 
a  valuable  means  to  leather  boots  and  (I  believe)  to 
gum-drops;  but  I  doubt  if  that  is  the  end  and  aim  of 
the  cow's  existence.  Dancing  strengthens  the  calves. 
''Nothing  like  dissection,"  said  Bob  Sawyer  (you 
remember),  "to  give  one  an  appetite." 

Violin-playing  strengthens  the  fingers.  But  it  is 
hardly  worth  while  to  remark  that  we  don't  play  the 
violin  for  our  health  or  for  our  finger-ends.  Violin- 
playing  also  flattens,  deforms,  and  callouses  the  finger- 
ends,  but  there  are  easier  ways  of  obtaining  these  re- 
sults. The  art  is  good  despite  these  drawbacks.  So 
football  is  good  despite  many  injuries,  not  because  it 
always  improves  health,  but  because  it  is  a  magnificent 
expression  of  the  human  spirit,  a  fine  example  of  popu- 
lar art. 

We  make  a  ridiculous  fetish  of  health  nowadays. 
Three  of  the  very  best  things  in  life  —  heroism,  artistic 
creation,  and  child-bearing  —  are  often  bad  for  the 
health.  To  avoid  heroism,  creative  work,  and  child- 
bearing  because  they  may  injure  the  health,  would 
show  a  conception  of  life  no  more  warped  and  distorted 
than  that  which  bids  us  dance  and  be  merry  because 
forsooth  it  is  healthy  to  do  so!  As  a  rule,  and  in  the 
long  run,  athletics  and  games  probably  promote  that 
total  enhancement  of  life,  one  aspect  of  which  is  health. 
But  temporarily,  and  in  some  cases  permanently,  they 
Jcave  their  scars  upon  the  body,  though  not  such  scars 


PLAY  AND  ART  105 

as  are  ploughed  into  mortals  by  the  more  strenuous 
and  dangerous  activities  of  helping  to  create  a  new 
machine,  a  new  symphony,  or  a  new  child. 

Let  us,  therefore,  give  play,  recreation,  and  the  other 
popular  arts  their  proper  place  beside  the  fine  arts,  and 
avoid  the  common  error  which  degrades  play  to  a  medi- 
cal instrument.  Thus  we  shall  help  to  preserve  the  "fine 
arts"  from  dying  of  isolation.  That  is  a  real  danger 
to-day.  Chilled  by  our  formal  respect,  discouraged  by 
our  practical  neglect,  mortified  by  our  sentimental 
petting,  the  musician,  sculptor,  and  painter  are  dan- 
gerously out  of  the  current  of  vigorous  American  life. 
Or,  to  put  it  from  the  other  side,  American  life  is  dan- 
gerously neglectful  of  some  forms  of  art  as  well  as  of 
most  forms  of  scholarship.  The  drama,  baseball,  and 
dancing  are  now  the  only  popular  arts  of  America  to- 
day. Let  us  realize  that  they  are  nevertheless  genuine 
arts,  and  plant  them  close  beside  music,  literature, 
painting,  and  sculpture.  Such  a  realization  will  help 
to  keep  vulgarity  out  of  popular  art,  and  to  save  the 
fine  arts  from  degenerating  into  fastidiousness  or  dying 
of  super-refinement. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  POPULAR  ARTS,  THE  MINOR  ARTS,  AND  THEIR 
BIG  BROTHERS 

In  the  name  of  informality  the  guests  at  a  large  club 
dinner  (with  a  presiding  officer  and  speeches  to  follow) 
are  sometimes  left  to  seat  themselves.  Some  sad  and 
embarrassing  moments  follow.  The  presiding  officer 
finds  his  chair  of  honor  and  there  he  stands  alone, 
gazing  wistfully  at  the  rest  of  the  company,  as  they 
place  themselves  at  so  respectful  a  distance  from  him 
that  empty  chairs,  half  a  dozen  or  more  on  each  side, 
are  his  only  support.  Respect  for  greatness  turns  out 
to  mean  the  painful  isolation  of  greatness,  until  at  last 
some  one  takes  pity  on  the  unfortunate  great  or  is  rue- 
fully begged  to  move  up  and  be  neighborly. 

So  it  is  with  the  "fine  arts."  A  society  should  be 
formed  to  alleviate  their  cruel  isolation.  In  the  first 
place,  more  amateurs  are  needed.  What  would  not  our 
painters  and  sculptors  give  for  such  unfeigned  interest, 
such  discriminating  approval  and  criticism  as  is  daily 
shouted  out  by  thousands  of  spectators  to  those  happy 
and  unconscious  artists,  the  "Red  Sox,"  the  *'Cubs,'* 
and  the  "Giants."  A  baseball  audience  is  made  up 
of  enthusiastic  amateurs,  a  considerable  fraction  of 
whom  are  confident  that  they  "could  have  made  that 
play  far  b^ter."    To  get  such  audiences  for  ordinary 


MAJOR  AND   MINOR  ARTS  107 

artists  every  one  should  be  brought  up  to  paint  and  to 
play  some  musical  instrument,  as  all  boys  are  brought 
up  to  play  baseball.  We  know  that  very  few  of  the 
children  who  learn  writing  in  our  schools  will  ever 
reach  any  greater  literary  distinction  than  the  compo- 
sition of  a  good  letter.  But  we  do  not,  therefore,  give 
up  teaching  them  to  write.  Neither  should  we  fail  to 
teach  children  painting  merely  because  we  know  that 
only  one  or  two  in  a  million  will  ever  get  beyond  the 
pleasures  and  appreciations  of  the  amateur. 

The  Fine  Arts  are  now  treated  as  an  aristocratic 
affair,  an  occupation  for  fastidious  and  delicate  souls. 
So  we  think  of  them,  so  we  treat  them.  Are  we  not 
brutally  imposing  these  misconceptions  upon  the  un- 
fortunate and  struggling  artist?  Are  we  not  forcing 
him  to  play  a  part  that  is  utterly  foreign  to  his  nature? 
I  think  so.  For  art,  I  think,  is  as  full-blooded  and  dash- 
ing a  pursuit  as  fox-hunting  or  football.  The  artist  dif- 
fers from  you  and  me  chiefly  because  he  is  more  alive. 
He  burns;  we  smoulder.  Everybody  is  slowly  burning 
up  in  the  fire  of  physiological  metabolism.  What  we 
call  "fire"  is  simply  a  bit  of  creation  where  the  forces 
of  life  burn  a  little  faster,  a  little  hotter,  and  more  beau- 
tifully than  in  human  tissues.  Were  there  more  reali- 
zation of  this  among  us  there  would  be  less  "patroniz- 
ing'* and  more  love  of  the  fine  arts,  less  listening  and 
gazing,  more  practice. 

But  there  are  many  to  plead  the  cause  of  Fine  Arts, 
and  the  Popular  Arts  (baseball,  dancing,  and  drama) 


io8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

need  no  amateur  eulogist,  since  the  magazines  began 
to  do  them  justice.  My  chief  concern  is  with  the 
minor  arts,  such  as  humor  and  good  humor,  and 
especially  with  some  of  the  simplest  among  them,  — 
speaking,  gesticulating,  letter- writing,  seeing  beauty 
in  common  things  or  putting  it  there,  anticipating 
another's  wish,  threading  one's  way  deftly  in  a  crowded 
street,  steering  a  discussion  into  profitable  channels. 

The  major  games  and  the  finer  arts  are  arranged  to 
fill  up  any  space  that  may  be  left  in  or  after  a  working 
day.  They  come  at  stated  hours ;  we  leave  our  jobs  and 
our  homes  to  attend  them.  Doubtless  this  must  always 
be  so  with  the  more  heroic  and  permanent  forms  of 
art.  We  cannot  play  a  football  game  on  the  hearthrug. 
We  cannot  carve  statues  while  waiting  on  customers. 
But  some  of  the  humbler  and  less  celebrated  forms  of 
art  can  penetrate  every  place  and  irradiate  every 
hour. 

I  mentioned  just  now  a  couple  of  the  most  important 
minor  arts:  humor;  and  good-humor,  a  form  of  good 
manners.  Shining  examples  of  both  these  arts  are  close 
round  us  in  daily  work,  though  we  often  ignore  them. 
In  1 9 10,  I  knew  a  butcher  dying  of  lingering  disease 
who  by  his  fun  and  radiant  good  humor  kept  at  bay 
the  specter  of  death,  and  in  **  the  pleasant  land  of  coun- 
terpane" maintained  to  the  last  a  successful  and  happy 
life.  When  on  my  morning  visit  I  would  ask  him  to 
turn  upon  his  side  that  I  might  examine  his  back,  you 


MAJOR  AND  MINOR  ARTS  109 

would  fancy  from  his  expression  that  I  had  invited  a 
hungry  man  to  eat.  He  could  have  answered  with  no 
,^ore  engaging  alacrity  if  I  had  proffered  him  the 
i:hance  to  step  back  into  health.  He  took  pleasure  and 
gave  it  in  each  of  the  trifling  services  rendered  him  in 
the  hospital  routine.  He  beamed  and  thanked  me  for 
shifting  a  pillow  as  if  I  had  given  him  a  diamond.  He 
chuckled  over  my  clumsy  attempt  to  tilt  the  glass  feed- 
ing-tube into  his  mouth  without  forcing  him  to  raise  his 
head;  and  each  morning  he  smoothed  and  folded  the 
flap  of  the  top  sheet  like  one  performing  an  act  of 
ritual. 

As  we  exchanged  the  most  unpoetic  information 
about  his  daily  routine,  the  dull  framework  of  question 
and  answer  was  spangled  over  with  a  profusion  of  deli- 
cate, brilliant,  meaningful  looks  that  rose  and  flowered 
silently  over  his  listening  face,  or  leaped  out  of  dull  sen- 
tences like  morning-glories  on  a  trellis.  So  step  by  step 
as  he  went  down  the  last  gray  week  of  his  life,  he  taught 
me  all  unconsciously  as  many  lessons  about  art,  beauty, 
and  playfulness  as  about  heroism. 

One  of  his  greatest  and  most  naive  arts,  one  of  the 
best  of  all  his  good  manners,  was  that  million-hued 
miracle  called  a  smile.  I  can  recall  but  a  tithe  of  the 
unspoken  verses,  the  soundless  improvisations  of  his 
smile,  —  serene,  wistful,  mischievous,  deprecating, 
tender,  joyful,  welcoming.  Not  a  moment  of  his  ebbing 
life  seemed  prosaic  or  joyless,  for  each  had  in  it  the  fore- 
taste or  the  aftertaste  of  a  smile,  born  without  effort 


no  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

and  dying  without  pain;  birth,  fruition,  and  end,  all 
equally  beautiful.  Sometimes  at  the  beginning  of  our 
talk  his  face  and  eyes  were  silent,  and  only  the  lines 
of  his  eloquent  hand  spoke  to  me.  Then,  at  some 
rousing  recollection,  there  would  break  from  his  face 
a  perfect  chorus  of  meanings,  each  feature  carrying 
its  own  strand  of  harmonious  but  varied  melody. 

Well,  I  must  stop  talking  about  him  and  try  to 
explain  what  he  has  to  do  with  play  and  art.  He  exem- 
plifies two  of  the  minor  arts  through  which  life  may  be 
enhanced  and  refreshed  from  moment  to  moment, 
whether  marching  up  hill  or  down  dale.  It  is  said  that 
the  best  crew  is  the  one  which  gets  its  rest  between 
every  two  strokes.  So  between  every  two  strokes  oi 
effort  we  need  the  games  and  the  arts  to  re-create  us 
from  moment  to  moment  so  that  our  souls  shall  never 
be  prosaic  or  discouraged.  Play  and  beauty,  running 
like  a  gold  thread  through  the  warp  and  woof  of  our 
life-fabric,  are  surely  as  needful  as  the  more  concen- 
trated and  exclusive  recreations.  To  sing  (or  whistle) 
at  one's  work,  to  carry  melodies  and  verses  in  our  heads, 
to  do  things  with  a  swing  and  a  rhythm  as  some  Japan- 
ese and  all  sailors  do,  is  to  preserve  our  souls  from 
drouth.  The  games  that  we  play  with  vocal  intonations, 
the  dramas  we  carry  on  with  smile  and  glance  and 
grimace,  need  not  interrupt  work.  They  call  for  no 
apparatus  and  no  stage.  Best  of  all,  each  of  us  "makes 
the  team"  in  these  games;  in  these  dramas  each  of  us 
has  **a  speaking  part/* 


MAJOR  AND  MINOR  ARTS  in 

All  these  arts,  major  and  minor,  need,  as  I  have  al- 
ready intimated,  more  intimacy  with  one  another.  In 
them  all  there  is  beauty  and  renewal  of  the  soul.  There 
are  fun  cind  play  in  them  all.  A  material  basis  is  pre- 
supposed for  them  all.  Health  is  an  uncertain  by- 
product in  them  ail.  Being  thus  congenial,  they  need 
one  another.  Popular  arts  and  minor  arts  can  win 
dignity  and  strength  from  closer  association  with 
fine  arts.  The  latter  will  gain  inspiration,  dash,  and 
effectiveness  when  they  are  freed  from  solitary  con- 
finement and  allowed  to  mingle  about  town  with  their 
less  self-conscious  fellow  arts. 

Our  generation  ought  to  introduce  these  long-es- 
tranged brothers,  each  to  each.  We  have  made  a  be- 
ginning in  the  revival  of  pageantry  and  *'  folk-dancing." 
The  pageant  and  the  folk-dance  have  beauty,  form,  and 
technique  like  a  fine  art.  Yet  they  are  done  in  a  playful 
spirit  and  by  the  general  public,  unversed  in  the  fine 
arts,  unconscious  as  ball-players.  The  special,  secluded 
class  of  "  artists"  is  suddenly  merged  in  a  crowd  of  de- 
lighted performers,  who  have  all  the  better  right  to  be 
called  artists  because  they  do  not  call  themselves  so. 
This  is  a  good  beginning.  Further  progress  can  be 
better  charted  out  when  we  have  considered  in  the 
coming  chapters  another  group  of  minor  arts. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


JEWELS 


I  HAVE  a  prejudice  against  precious  stones  because 
they  cost  so  much  and  can  be  enjoyed  by  so  few.  But 
suppose  we  strip  away  the  coarser  husks  of  people's 
enjoyment  of  them,  especially  the  element  of  exclusive 
possession  and  the  suggestion  that  their  wearer  is 
richer  and  therefore  better  than  the  rest  of  us.  Suppose 
we  isolate  the  peculiar  beauty  and  power  which  jewels 
possess,  do  we  not  find  that  all  can  have  it?  What 
jewel  sparkles  like  the  glint  of  a  low  sun  on  the  windows 
of  a  distant  house,  or  like  dewdrops  on  the  grass,  or 
like  the  opalescent  snow-crystals  seen  when  you  look 
towards  an  afternoon  sun  across  a  fresh  snow-field? 
Shift  your  position  one  inch  and  the  whole  amazing 
cluster  of  lights  has  changed  to  a  new  set.  You  see  not 
one  jewel,  but  hundreds;  not  one  color  only,  but  rose, 
green,  and  violet  sown  across  the  white  snow  in  tiny 
globes  of  fiery  light  which  make  the  "precious  "  stones 
seem  dull  by  comparison. 

What  more  would  you  get  if  you  could  pick  them  off 
the  snow,  keep  them,  and  call  them  yours?  Do  the 
jewels  that  you  buy  ever  again  look  so  marvelous  to 
you  as  they  did  when  first  you  handled  them  on  the 
jeweler's  velvet?  One  may  clench  his  teeth  and  shut  his 
fists  and  swear  that  he  will  not  let  himself  **  get  so  used  *' 


JEWELS  113 

to  the  beauty  of  things  that  he  hardly  notices  them. 
To  some  extent  one  may  succeed  by  various  devices  in 
postponing  or  diminishing  the  depreciation  of  his  own 
pleasure  in  his  property.  But  nothing  can  prevent  it. 

One  need  not  try  to  prove  that  possession  is  pure  evil 
or  that  familiarity  steals  a//  that  we  care  for.  Doubt- 
less possession  has  its  counterbalancing  advantages. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  doubt  that  there  are 
great  and  certain  advantages  in  the  jewels  which  we 
cannot  keep.  **  Verweile  dock;  du  hist  so  schon/'  is  al- 
ways a  risky  thing  to  say  to  one's  experiences.  The  very 
brevity  and  fugitiveness  of  their  flash  may  be  needed 
to  "stab  our  spirits  broad  awake";  a  longer,  slower 
illumination  may  not  arouse  us  at  all.  Slow  down  a 
sparkling  scherzo  by  Tschaikowsky  or  Chopin  till  each 
note  stays  with  us  a  minute  instead  of  a  tenth  of  a 
second.  It  is  ruined,  of  course,  but  its  ruin  is  not  more 
complete  than  the  dilapidation  of  our  possessions,  stone 
by  stone,  as  appreciation  is  undermined  by  the  stealthy 
seeping  waters  of  time. 

Of  course  we  can  and  must  fight  against  this  ineradi- 
cable, original  sin  of  satiety, — original  sin  because  it 
is  one  in  which  even  the  most  saintly  and  heroic  share. 
Great  souls  keep  it  under,  but  no  one  wipes  it  out.  Yet 
it  is  not  "original"  in  the  sense  of  being  inborn.  Chil- 
dren are  marvelously  free  from  it. 

Because  we  cannot  preserve  intact,  as  children  do, 
this  virgin  freshness  of  the  often  repeated,  we  need 
especially  to  cultivate  the  minor  art  of  seeing  jewels,  of 


114  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

expecting  the  unexpected  and  absorbing  its  full  im« 
pression,  so  that  on  the  canvas  of  later  memory  it  will 
shine  like  a  high  light. 

Perhaps  I  should  here  explain  more  concretely  what 
I  mean  by  the  jewels  of  daily  life.  Here  are  some: 
the  flash  of  a  moving  violin  bow  (as  well  as  of  the  note 
it  invokes),  the  shock  of  cool  water  on  your  heated  face, 
a  thrush  note  at  dawn,  a  cadenza  of  swift  laughter,  the 
crash  and  foam  of  a  breaking  wave,  the  silver  needle 
of  a  fife  note,  the  rocket  flight  of  a  piccolo  flute,  all  fire- 
works and  brilliant  lights  in  city  streets,  the  light  of 
speaking  or  laughing  eyes,  the  first  glimpse  of  an  hepat- 
ica  in  spring  with  the  white  ends  of  its  stamens  shin- 
ing against  its  deep  purple  cup  like  stars  in  a  summer 
night,  —  all  these  brilliant  points  of  delight  have  this 
in  common  that,  like  an  electric  spark,  they  set  oflf 
trains  of  thought  and  action  which  of  ourselves  we  are 
powerless  to  ignite. 

Down  through  the  stratified  layers  of  our  inheritance 
deep  into  the  geologic  ages  of  our  souls  the  jeweFs 
flash  can  penetrate,  and  from  those  black  depths  come 
up  tiny  but  precious  specimens  of  what  were  otherwise 
inaccessible.  Ancient,  fragmentary  perceptions  which 
no  other  power  can  exhume,  leap  to  the  surface  of  con- 
sciousness when  I  hear  a  thrush  sing,  and  though  I  for- 
get them,  they  have  had  ** their  moment'*  and  have 
acted  on  the  whole  texture  and  surface  of  my  thoughts. 

Brief  and  limited  though  it  is,  —  this  game  which 
we  play  with  the  jewel-like  elements  of  perception,  — • 


JEWELS  115 

yet  it  possesses  one  of  the  typical  merits  of  fine  art; 
its  intense  and  far-reaching  suggestiveness.  The  con- 
centrated and  profound  significance  of  a  jewel-like 
moment  can  sustain  and  nourish  us  through  long 
stretches  of  Matthew  Arnold's  "conduct"  and  give 
edge  and  point  to  the  dullest  thinking.  A  shining  mo- 
ment may  center  the  meaning  of  a  whole  month,  as  a 
single  cadence  dominates  the  development  of  a  whole 
symphony. 

Why  should  we  not  prize  these  ubiquitous  jewels  the 
more  because  they  are  accessible  to  all?  They  are  more 
brilliant  than  rubies,  less  subject  to  the  depreciation  of 
familiarity,  or  fashion,  and  infinitely  more  various, 
since  they  can  appeal  to  us  through  sound,  touch,  odor, 
and  taste  as  well  as  through  the  vibrations  of  light. 
That  possession  of  them  costs  nothing  and  excludes  no 
one  is  surely  a  reason  for  valuing  them  still  more  highly. 
No  one  wants  to  be  selfish.  It  is  hard  for  any  one  to 
appropriate  money  or  delight  for  the  lack  of  which  we 
know  that  others  may  be  hungry.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  homage  we  pay  to  the  neglected  jewels  of  light, 
water,  sound  and  fire,  so  far  from  dispossessing  other 
people  may  enrich  them ;  for  it  may  become  contagious. 
Others  may  catch  such  enthusiasms  without  diminish- 
ing our  stock.  Our  abundance  cannot  mean  another's 
lack. 

They  are  democratic,  then,  these  jewel-like  experi- 
ences,—  free  to  all,  shareable  by  all,  the  privilege  of 
each.    Yet  to  those  who  prize  (as  I  do)  the  virtues  of 


Ii6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

the  monarchical  state  and  want  to  see  them  somehow 
persist  in  the  amber  of  democracy,  it  is  comforting  to 
observe  that  in  its  own  kingdom  every  jewel  is  an  abso- 
lute monarch.  A  high  light  is  annulled  if  copies  of  it 
are  peppered  across  a  picture.  Like  every  climax,  it 
makes  our  pulses  throb  and  our  imaginations  leap  just 
because  it  is  a  monarch  on  its  throne,  honored  by  de- 
pendents and  subordinates  around  it.  Its  virtues,  like 
those  of  monarchy,  are  communicated  to  all  parts  of 
the  picture,  but  the  less  luminous  tones  have  no  equal- 
ity or  fraternity  in  relation  to  the  high  light.  Their 
virtue  is  in  their  subordination. 

This  monarchical  quality  of  jewel-like  moments 
gives  them  power  over  long  spaces  of  time.  They  live 
in  their  afterglow  and  in  the  thought  and  action  which 
they  touch  off.  We  mourn  their  brevity,  their  intense 
but  fugitive  energy,  as  mothers  repine  because  their 
children  will  not  stay  young;  but  in  truth  we  do  not 
want  them  prolonged  any  more  than  we  want  quick 
music  slowed  down,  or  a  smile  that  is  put  on  to  stay. 

What  is  the  peculiar  value  of  the  minor  art  of  finding 
jewels?  In  the  first  place,  any  one  can  practice  it. 
There  is  no  lack  of  such  sparkling  bits  in  any  one's 
environment.  Next,  they  are  extraordinarily  dynamic ; 
like  high  power  explosives  they  can  open  up  deep  hidden 
strata  of  consciousness  and  unlock  the  springs  of  last- 
ing happiness.  For  they  are  in  fact  little  bits  of  heaven 
which  we  see  by  anticipation,  as  children  peek  at  the 
Christmas  tree  through  the  curtains. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

GIVE-AND-TAKE   IN  THE   MINOR  ARTS  AND 
ELSEWHERE 

Overlooked,  ridden  down,  and  left  by  the  roadside, 
there  lies  a  host  of  divinely  simple  arts  and  games.  But 
though  we  must  try  to  pick  up  and  take  home  with  us 
as  many  as  we  can,  we  need  not  crowd  out  thereby  any 
of  the  regular  occupants  of  our  home.  We  can  play 
these  games  and  do  our  "useful"  work  (good  luck  to 
it!)  at  the  same  time.  They  may  serve  to  brighten  and 
tone  up  whole  chapters  of  otherwise  prosaic  existence, 
and  even  when  they  are  scarcely  noticed  they  often  give 
a  sparkling  surface  to  the  world  we  are  living  in.  They 
are  various  in  a  hundred  ways,  yet  in  essentials  they 
are  much  the  same. 

One  of  the  essentials  in  the  minor  arts  and  games  (as 
well  as  in  the  fine  arts,  in  work,  in  love,  and  in  worship) 
is  *' give-and-take,"  or  initiative  and  response.  In  the 
major  arts  this  fundamental  may  be  so  overlaid  with 
technique  and  sestheticism  that  it  needs  to  be  speci- 
ally pointed  out,  but  in  the  minor  arts  it  stands  out 
clear.  Take,  for  example,  one  of  the  unnamed  sports 
which  I  will  christen  as  the  game  of  "Getting  a  Mean- 
ing Across." 

We  can  easily  learn  to  recover  the  child's  delight  in 
getting  a  meaning  across  and  in  receiving  a  return.  All 


Ii8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

boys,  and  some  undegenerate  elders,  are  fascinated 
by  the  technique  of  giving  and  taking  a  message  by 
wig- wagging  or  with  a  Morse  telegraphic  key.  The 
precise  nature  of  the  message  is  a  minor  point.  For  until 
we  grow  dulled  and  rusted  we  enjoy  the  art  of  getting 
any  message  to  or  from  another.  It  is  good  fun  to  wig- 
wag any  command,  to  send  any  words,  no  matter  how 
dull  or  familiar,  through  the  ticking  key. 

Two  things  only  we  demand :  there  must  be  somebody 
watching  at  the  other  end,  and  the  words  which  we  send 
must  mean  something.  No  art  for  art*s  sake  will  do 
here.  We  are  down  to  fundamentals.  We  are  recogniz- 
ing and  being  recognized,  ever  sacred  and  mystic  arts. 

So  my  dying  patient,  the  butcher,  turned  with  a  hom- 
ing instinct  in  his  last  days  to  some  of  the  least  of  these 
arts,  and  found  happiness  in  the  elemental,  —  yes,  the 
sacramental,  —  "give-and-take'*  of  speech.  He  still 
possessed  that  privilege  which  we  hope  is  not  withheld 
from  any  part  of  creation.  If  the  soils,  the  flowers,  and 
the  animals  get  meaning  across  to  each  other,  doubtless 
they  enjoy  the  art  as  deeply  as  children  do,  or  as  adults 
who  learn  a  new  language  by  practicing  it  upon  every 
foreigner.  My  dying  friend  enjoyed  the  miracle  of  com- 
munication no  matter  how  simple  and  unoriginal  was 
the  matter  conveyed.  He  spoke  with  a  smile  and  an- 
swered with  a  smile,  not  only  for  politeness'  sake,  but 
because  he  enjoyed  the  give-and-take. 

Recognition  —  no  matter  of  what  —  is  always  a 
surprise  and  an  adventure,  until  our  appreciation  has 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE        119 

died  down  into  dull,  senile  gazing.  Some  one  holds  up 
his  fingers  and  we  delight  to  see  a  rabbit*s  head  in  the 
shadow  on  the  wall.  We  were  not  told  beforehand  what 
we  were  to  see.  From  among  the  shadows  we  plucked 
out  that  bit  of  clear  meaning  afresh  and  for  ourselves. 
Therefore  it  has  all  the  zest  of  a  **  find."  It  was  not  iso- 
lated, framed,  labeled,  or  double-starred  in  a  Baedeker. 
We  are  given  the  same  privilege  of  discovery  whenever 
we  listen  to  the  simplest  word  that  falls  from  another's 
lips.  Till  it  actually  issues,  any  meaning  is  possible. 
The  prophetic,  the  illuminating,  word  for  which  the 
world  is  hungering  may  leap  forth. 

And  it  is  not  only  from  a  noble  soul,  like  my  butcher's, 
that  the  miracle  may  be  expected.  **  We  may  be  talking 
with  a  peevish  and  garrulous  sneak.  We  are  watching 
the  play  of  his  paltry  features,  his  evasive  eyes  and 
babbling  lips.  Suddenly  the  face  begins  to  change  and 
harden,  the  eyes  glare  like  the  eyes  of  a  mask,  the  whole 
face  of  clay  becomes  a  common  mouthpiece  and  the 
voice  that  comes  forth  is  the  voice  of  God  uttering  His 
everlasting  soliloquy."  ^ 

So  in  the  midst  of  a  madman's  chatter  I  have  heard 
the  awful  word  of  Truth  sounding  through.  I  have 
heard  a  maniac  expound  a  scheme  to  save  my  soul  and 
yours,  a  scheme  saner,  more  practicable,  and  far-seeing 
than  most  that  I  have  yet  heard.  He  is  well  now  and 
venturing  forth  to  put  that  plan  in  practice.  It  holds 
good  now  that  the  madness  has  left  him,  yet  he  never 

*  G.  K.  Chesterton,  Life  of  Browning,  p.  202. 


120  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

conceived  it  or  uttered  it  till  he  was  in  the  grip  of  in* 
sanity. 

But  I  am  still  more  interested  that  we  should  recog- 
nize and  cultivate  the  very  primitive  game  of  Recog" 
nition  (called  "see  the  point"  or  "catch  the  idea"), 
when  nothing  great  or  beautiful  is  specially  to  be  looked 
for.  You  give  a  look,  throw  out  an  idea,  hazard  a  guess. 
You  take  back  an  impression,  a  surprise,  a  delight. 
Tennis  is  a  great  game,  even  when  it  is  played  by  duf- 
fers, and  when  you  play  the  game  of  Recognition  with 
any  person,  there  need  be  no  heroic  wisdom  on  the  one 
side  nor  impressive  beauty  on  the  other.  You  do  not 
even  need  another  person.  You  can  play  the  game  alone. 
For  instance :  — 

The  hour  is  seven  in  the  morning  and,  though  it  is 
summer  and  bright  sunshine,  you  are  still  sleepy.  But 
though  your  mind  is  not  yet  fully  awake,  something 
unexpectedly  fires  you  into  the  ancient  game  of  Recog- 
nition. 

"What  is  that  thing  over  there?" 

With  your  ocular  and  pupillary  muscles,  with  retina, 
brain  and  mind,  you  aim  and  fire. 

"Just  there,"  you  send  your  bullet.  "  I  *11  bet  I  know 
what  it  is."  There  is  a  moment  of  suspense.  Y'es,  you 
have  got  it.  It  is  as  you  thought;  that  wonderful  and 
beneficent  object  is  a  toothbrush !  But  in  your  new  posi- 
tion the  toothbrush  sends  something  back  to  you.  You 
have  given ;  now  you  take  the  return.  You  are  forced  to 
recognize  something  that  you  did  not  pursue  or  expect 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE        121 

"What  *s  this  that  I  find  upon  my  retina,  left  here  like 
a  foundling,  just  as  I  am  starting  upon  another  errand? 
Why,  it  is  as  beautiful  as  the  rainbows  over  the  Niagara 
mist  and  far  more  brightly  colored.  Surely  no  one  has 
put  an  opal  into  the  handle  of  that  toothbrush." 

Then  naming  begins  and  the  first  flush  of  miracle 
fades,  as  we  recognize  that  "this"  is  the  "light  of  com- 
mon day"  striking  the  glass  handle  of  the  toothbrush 
and  broken  into  rainbow  colors  on  the  towel  beneath. 
It  is  only  the  "hygienic  glass-handled  toothbrush" 
which  you  have  recently  purchased.  But  it  has  given 
you  a  glorious  hunt,  and  though  the  quarry  is  now 
bagged  and  lifeless  compared  to  what  it  was  before  you 
fired  a  leaden  conclusion  into  it,  you  have  still  the 
hunter's  golden  memories  to  look  back  to. 

To  take  a  message  or  send  a  message  by  the  tele- 
graphic system  which  we  call  sight  or  speech,  is  a  pleas- 
ant game  to  many  children,  many  Italians,  Negroes, 
French,  in  fact  I  suppose  to  pretty  much  all  the  na- 
tions except  the  sober  "Anglo-Saxons,"  — a  game 
endlessly  flexible  and  variable,  a  sport  of  which  one 
never  tires.  The  "give-and-take"  of  sight  (never 
"take"  alone  if  intelligence  is  awake)  has  the  excite- 
menf  of  battledore  and  shuttlecock.  Nay,  rather  battle- 
dore and  shuttlecock  is  fun  because  it  apes  language 
in  the  fullness  and  neatness  of  its  give-and-take. 

Here  I  believe  is  one  of  the  most  searching  tests  of 
any  game  or  art:  Is  it  so  various,  so  flexible,  and  yet 


122  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

so  artistically  limited,  that  there  is  room  in  it  for  many 
kinds  of  give-and-take,  such  as  improvisation,  surprise, 
adventure,  clear  success,  and  obvious  failure?  If  so^ 
it  is  a  good  game,  a  fine  art.  If  not,  it  is  sure  to  degener- 
ate into  gambling,  into  technique  and  aestheticism,  into 
nirvanesque  vagueness,  or  into  a  simple  bore.  Let  us 
follow  this  clue  somewhat  further. 

With  each  ball  sent  in,  the  baseball  pitcher  "gives" 
and  the  batter  *' takes,"  or  leaves,  an  opportunity. 
Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  precisely  this 
chance  been  given  or  taken.  Hence  freedom  and  the 
stamp  of  individuality  is  in  every  play.  But  more  than 
that,  the  r61es  are  perpetually  changing.  If  the  batter 
hits  the  ball,  it  is  his  turn  to  give  and  the  fielder*s  to 
take  a  chance.  The  peculiar  greatness  of  baseball,  com- 
pared with  other  games,  is  in  the  endless  variety  of 
opportunities  given,  taken,  refused,  or  missed,  and  the 
innumerable  ways  in  which  one  can  give,  take,  or  miss. 
Success  and  failure  are  clean-cut.  There  is  no  limbo 
between. 

In  football,  tennis,  billiards,  leap-frog,  shooting, 
fishing,  boxing,  wrestling,  fencing,  chess,  whist,  hide- 
and-seek, —  the  fascinating  variety  of  ** gives"  and 
'* takes"  is  clear.  But  this  is  not  so  true  of  rowing,  bi- 
cycling, sailing,  swimming,  skating,  coasting,  and  track 
athletics,  for  it  is  now  with  inanimate  antagonists  that 
we  engage.  Oar  and  water  hit  or  miss  each  other  as  we 
row,  but  it  is  not  a  very  vital  sort  of  conversation. 
Ice  is  still  less  various  and  responsive.  When  we  come 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE        123 

to  track  athletics,  we  must  confess  that  the  running- 
track  and  the  ground  from  which  the  jumper  "takes 
off"  as  he  rises,  can  hardly  be  said  to  respond  at  all. 
It  is  because  these  sports  are  lacking  in  give-and-take 
that  men  rarely  sprint  or  jump  merely  for  the  fun  of  it. 
Hence  competition  is  left  as  the  heart  and  soul  of  all 
track  athletics  and  marks  them  thereby  as  inferior  to 
games  like  baseball  and  whist,  which  contain  a  back- 
and-forth  element.  There  is  mighty  little  fun  in  a  mile 
run  or  a  hammer- throw  unless  you  win.  It  is  hard  work 
and  soon  grows  monotonous.  In  other  words,  it  is  not 
the  best  sort  of  play. 

Oratory,  if  the  audience  and  the  orator  are  at  their 
best,  is  a  fine  example  of  an  art  built  up  and  adorned 
by  give-and-take.  The  true  orator  does  not  merely 
spout  a  piece  previously  learned  by  heart.  He  answers 
the  n\ood  of  his  audience  as  dancers  answer  one  an- 
othet  in  their  dance.  Back  and  forth  goes  the  impulse 
and  the  idea,  —  perhaps  through  spoken  question  or 
comment  from  the  audience,  oftener  through  responses 
swiftly  written  in  the  faces  of  the  hearers  and  deftly 
read  by  the  speaker.  Ordinary  lectures  and  sermons, 
on  the  other  hand,  suffer  because  of  the  passivity  of 
the  audience.  It  is  all  give  and  no  take,  all  batting 
and  no  return  of  the  ball. 

Not  so  is  it  with  adventure.  The  give-and-take  be- 
tween man  and  nature  becomes  a  lively  game  of  "  ques- 
tion and  answer'*  when  we  explore  an  old  clock,  a  new 


124  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

country,  an  animal  tissue,  or  a  gas.  Our  search  is  no 
passive  observation  and  record  of  what  happens;  it 
is  a  voyage  of  discovery.  Sometimes  we  put  a  loose, 
open-minded  question  as  in  roaming,  browsing,  tramp- 
ing, "gypsying";  sometimes  we  plan  a  tight,  narrow 
search  for  one  thing  only:  "Is  arsenic  present  or  ab- 
sent in  this  wall-paper  ? ' '  But  the  essentials  of  give-and- 
take  are  always  the  same.  First  we  shape  a  searching 
question  which  we  cast  out  like  bait  or  serve  like  a  ten- 
nis-ball. Then  comes  the  answer  from  nature,  some- 
thing caught  by  the  bait  of  your  question,  some  return 
of  your  service.  If  we  get  no  definite  answer  the  search 
is  a  failure ;  it  was  not  sufficiently  well  planned.  Good 
exploring  knows  what  it  is  after  and  shapes  its  plan  so 
that  it  is  sure  to  get  an  answer  telling  whether  it  has 
succeeded  or  failed.  The  explorer  who  seeks  the  Pole 
must  know  when  he  gets  there;  if  not  he  should  stay  at 
home. 

If  there  is  a  long  interval  between  service  and  return, 
between  question  asked  and  answer  received,  we  call 
this  investigation  "work,"  not  "play."  For  example, 
it  is  bent  and  painful  toil  to  count  the  red  corpuscles  of 
the  blood ;  for  during  the  lengthy  operation,  the  mind  is 
suspended  between  the  question :  "Any  anaemia  here?  " 
and  the  answer,  "Yes"  or  "No."  We  touch  no  firm 
ground  of  interest  on  either  side.  The  count  is  an  ad- 
venture of  the  mind,  but,  as  in  many  adventures,  there 
is  a  stretch  of  desert  to  be  plodded  through.  Much 
scientific  work  has  this  arduous,  laborious  character; 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE        125 

it  is  far  more  work  than  play.  But  if  the  answers  to  our 
questions  come  in  thick  and  fast,  as  they  do  when  we 
explore  a  new  acquaintance,  a  virgin  forest,  or  an  old 
house,  then  science  becomes  one  of  the  best  forms  of 
the  Great  Game  of  Give-and-Take. 

Contrast  the  lack  of  this  vital  response  in  the  pas- 
sive music-guzzling  of  languid  matin6e  audiences.  Art 
is  there  debased.  Consider  M.  Des  Esseintes  of  Huys- 
man*s  romance,  with  his  concert  of  smells.^  **By 
means  of  his  vaporizer  the  room  was  filled  with  an 
essence  skillfully  compounded  by  an  artist's  hand  and 
well  deserving  its  name  —  '  Extract  of  the  Flowering 
Plain.*  .  .  .  Having  completed  his  background  he 
breathed  over  it  all  a  light  spray  of  essences  .  .  .  such 
as  powdered  and  painted  ladies  use  and  added  a  sus- 
picion of  lilac.** 

But  what  can  he  do  about  it  all?  What  answer  can 
he  toss  back?  What  thanks?  No  "inner  imitative 
creation,**  no  creative  attention  is  possible.  Unless 
he  has  the  senses  of  a  Helen  Keller,  he  is  more  power- 
less and  passive  before  his  chorus  of  smells  than 
before  any  other  vivid  experience.  As  hand  answers 
hand  in  touch,  so  we  can  answer  sound  with  sound, 
look  with  look,  dance  with  dance,  landscape  with  pic- 
ture or  poem.  But  before  a  concert  of  smells  we  can 
only  breathe  and  nod.  It  is  pleasure,  but  nothing  more. 
It  is  no  game,  no  art. 

No  art,  I  say,  for  the  best  of  art  is  never  in  looking 

*  Quoted  from  Groos,  The  Play  of  Man,  pp.  19-20. 


126  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

on;  always  in  getting  into  the  game.  So  in  watching 
a  jumper  I  have  seen  a  dozen  spectators,  at  the  moment 
of  his  leap,  quite  unconsciously  jerk  up  a  leg  till  the 
foot  was  in  position  to  enter  a  horse's  stirrup.  Each 
spectator  was  giving  his  mite  of  aid,  and  a  very  substan- 
tial aid  it  is,  seeing  that  practically  all  the  best  jumping 
records  are  made  with  the  help  of  an  audience.  In  the 
cold,  alone,  men  hardly  ever  jump  or  run  their  best. 

In  listening  to  music  or  looking  at  pictures  the  same 
sort  of  aid  and  response  must  be  given  by  audience  to 
artist,  if  the  art  is  to  be  fine  art.  This  active  aid  is  what 
Mr.  Schauffler  has  called  so  finely  the  art  of  "creative 
listening."  ^  We  follow  the  movement  of  music  as 
spectators  follow  the  flight  of  the  tennis-ball  in  a  match 
game,  craning  heads  rhythmically  to  right  and  left,  as 
if  they  had  but  a  single  neck.  "Tone  movement  glides, 
turns,  twists,  hops,  leaps,  dances,  bows,  sways,  climbs, 
quivers,  blusters  and  storms  —  all  with  equal  ease.  To 
reproduce  this  in  the  physical  world,  a  man  would 
have  to  dash  himself  to  pieces,  or  become  imponder- 
able.'* ^  Yet  when  we  listen  to  music  we  seem  to  per- 
form all  these  impossible  feats  (as  we  do  in  dreams) 
and  thus  give  back  to  the  player  the  response  which  he 
needs.  We  play  up  to  his  playing  as  subordinates  sup- 
port a  star.  —  "Look!  I  show  you  a  hazy,  level  horizon 
over  a  hot  desert,"  says  the  music.  —  "Aye,  aye,  sir," 
says  the  audience,  and  sees  it.  —  "Now,  it's  rearing 

>  Robert  H.  Schauffler,  The  Musical  Amateur,  and  Other  Essays. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  1912. 

*  Kostlin,  quoted  by  Groos,  The  Play  oj  Man,  p.  28. 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE         127 

up  against  the  sky  like  a  drawbridge.  —  Fly  up  with  it 
and  over  it.  —  Swoop  down  on  the  other  side,"  comes 
the  order,  and  with  surprised  alacrity  we  obey. 

Such  a  maneuver,  initiated  by  music,  carried  out 
with  free  improvisations  by  the  audience,  is  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  simpler  movements  suggested  by 
rhythm.  To  rhythm,  the  response  of  the  audience, 
with  nodding  heads  and  tapping  feet,  is  much  easier 
and  much  more  obvious.  What  is  our  response  to  the 
pitch  and  quality  and  intensity  of  musical  tones?  I  do 
not  know.  It  is  one  of  the  problems  that  I  hope  to  see 
worked  out.  But  we  may  rest  assured,  I  think,  that  we 
respond  in  some  way  to  all  that  we  appreciate  in  art. 
We  play  over  within  us  what  is  given  us,  reshaping 
and  continuing  the  idea  as  we  do  in  talk.  This  is  the 
"inner  imitative  creation"  of  Souriot. 

To  *'play  the  game"  of  life  is  a  phrase  that  is  often 
on  our  lips.  I  think  it  should  always  include  both  serv- 
ing and  taking  the  return  whatever  matter  it  may  be, 
grave  or  trifling,  that  is  sent  over  the  net.  Again  and 
again  in  this  chapter  I  have  said  or  implied  that  play 
and  art  find  something  very  fundamental  or  even  sa- 
cred in  the  practice  of  * '  give-and-take. "  In  "  Work ' *  I 
tried  to  suggest  the  same  thing.  Labor  without  return, 
abundance  passively  gulped  down  without  labor,  are 
degrading.  To  make  labor  worthy,  service  and  return 
must  occur  within  such  a  span  as  the  imagination 
can  bridge,  else  we  have  not  work,  but  drudgery.  I 
shall  try  to  bring  out  the  same  vital  responsiveness 


128  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

in  every  form  of  love  and  of  worship  which  deserves 
respect. 

I  suppose  any  one  may  be  misled  into  quoting  Scrip- 
ture in  support  of  his  fads  and  fancies.  I  hope  I  shall 
not  do  so,  but  I  intend  to  take  the  risk,  for  I  have  long 
been  impressed  by  the  importance  of  the  passages 
in  which  Christ  emphasized  the  elemental  and  univer- 
sal significance  of  response :  — 

"Ask  and  it  shall  be  given  you;  Seek  and  ye  shall 
find;  Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you." 

**Take,  eat,  this  is  my  body." 

"He  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it." 

In  the  crude  ideals  of  justice  ("an  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth"),  in  the  Christian  idea  of  return- 
ing good  for  evil,  in  the  marriage  ceremony  when  vows 
and  rings  are  given  and  received,  in  the  communion 
service,  in  the  funeral  service,  even  in  the  service  of 
baptism  when  the  child  is  offered  by  its  parents  and 
received  into  the  church  and  state  as  a  gift  of  God,  we 
find  give-and-take  wrought  into  some  of  our  most 
sacred  and  time-honored  institutions.  If  this  is  so  in 
fundamentals,  it  seems  to  me  only  what  we  might  ex- 
pect that  responsiveness  should  be  the  keynote  of  good 
play  and  the  criterion  for  distinguishing  it  from  bad. 

Summing  up  my  sketch  of  the  minor  arts  I  will  men- 
tion some  of  their  most  characteristic  advantages :  — 
(i)  Anybody  can  learn  one  or  more  of  them  and  most 


THE  ARTS  OF  GIVE-AND-TAKE         129 

people  do  so.  They  require  no  musical  ear,  no  expensive 
training  in  Paris.  They  can  be  practiced  at  any  time, 
even  in  the  midst  of  work  and  love. 

(2)  While  the  service  of  major  arts  may  drain  the 
artist  dry  and  leave  him  no  vitality  for  human  inter- 
course, the  minor  arts  (especially  humor  and  good 
humor)  are  not  so  exacting.  They  exhaust  no  one ;  they 
ease  and  sweeten  our  daily  life  with  our  fellows.  This 
refreshment  is  all  the  more  constant  because  the  minor 
artist  seldom  finds  his  audience  cold.  He  has  a  hun- 
dred appreciators  (in  America,  at  least)  for  every  one 
who  supports  the  major  arts  by  his  sympathy.  Give- 
and-take  flies  fast  and  furious  between  every  minor 
artist  and  his  audience. 

(3)  **Good  nature"  is  a  singularly  rich  and  pregnant 
art.  Did  you  ever  think  of  its  literal  meaning,  its  head- 
long plunge  to  the  sweet,  sound  core  of  a  man?  The 
"good-natured"  man  is  easy  to  please  and  hard  to 
sour,  because  of  his  supple  readiness  to  play  any  minor 
art  or  game  that  is  going  on  and  to  suggest  one  if  no- 
body else  offers  to  do  so.  Any  minor  art  and  any  minor 
part  suits  him.  He  demands  no  leading  roles,  no  monu- 
ment of  permanence.  His  ready  smile  is  the  symbol  of 
all  thfs ;  it  is  the  flag  which  he  flies  whenever  a  game  is 
begun,  an  adventure  launched,  or  a  return  taken. 


XV 


TRANCE  IN  PLAY 

At  the  height  of  our  appreciation  of  beauty  and  play 
there  is  a  tendency  to  dreamy  states  of  mind,  and 
finally  to  trance.  For  Ecstasy  is  the  goal  and  climax  to 
which  musician,  painter,  dancer,  poet  are  leading  us, 
and  if  we  cling  to  that  climax  and  try  to  prolong  it, 
we  may  easily  slide  over  into  a  sort  of  Nirvana  where 
life  is  quenched.  The  beauty  overpowers  us.  **Vedi 
Napoli  e  poi  moriy 

Oriental  music  and  dancing  are  directed  straight  at 
this  goal.  They  are  meant  to  produce  an  anticipation 
of  Nirvana  by  quenching  desire,  thought,  and  all 
awareness  of  self.  In  Occidental  art  there  is  also  much 
of  this  semi-hypnotic  quality.  Strongly  marked  and 
monotonous  rhythms,  with  very  little  melody  woven 
upon  them,  approach  the  confines  of  trance.  One  favors 
the  hypnotic  state  or  true  sleep  by  listening  to  any 
monotonous  regularly  repeated  sound :  a  ticking  clock, 
a  buzzing  bell-hammer,  a  humming  insect,  the  rhyth- 
mic clank  of  sleeping-car  wheels. 

Music,  dancing,  and  verse  make  use  of  this  thought- 
quenching  power,  whenever  a  simple  rhythm  is  al- 
lowed to  become  the  dominating  element,  as  in  bar- 
baric music  it  always  is.  In  a  drum  corps,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  rhythm  is  broken;  its  staccato  quality  is  in 


TRANCE  IN   PLAY  131 

itself  arousing.  It  wakes  us  up,  as  irregular  noises 
always  tend  to  do. 

Now  sleep  is  one  thing  and  play  another.  Any  play 
which  tends  to  put  us  to  sleep  is  a  poor  play,  especially 
if  it  puts  us  partially  asleep,  drugging  our  intelligence 
like  alcohol  and  leaving  the  rest  of  us  awake  but  un- 
governed.  Swinging,  rocking,  chewing  gum,  and  any 
formless  type  of  music,  dance,  or  verse  exemplify 
what  I  mean.  Such  plays  are  essentially  formless.  They 
have  no  beginning,  middle,  or  end.  They  minimize 
variety.  They  are  as  circular  as  worry,  returning  again 
and  again  to  the  same  point,  and  soon  approach  the 
mechanical  "running  on"  of  the  machine.  They  leave 
us  passive  as  the  clay  of  the  potter  spinning  upon  its 
wheel  after  his  shaping  hand  is  withdrawn. 

At  any  moment  one  can  break  the  trance  and  relieve 
the  monotony  of  pure  rhythm  by  weaving  an  improvisa- 
tion upon  it.  Boys  seldom  stay  long  in  a  swing  without 
contriving  "stunts'*  to  put  variety  and  adventure  into 
the  drowsy  motion;  but  I  have  seen  girls  swing  in- 
definitely without  variation  or  check.  Such  formless 
plays  are  meant  to  kill  time,  —  the  Oriental  ambition. 
They  are  like  the  endless  rhythmic  rocking  of  idiots, 
or  the  restless  to-and-fro  of  caged  animals.  Human 
prisoners  also  have  such  spasms  of  aimless  walking  up 
and  down  their  cells.    It  quiets  the  frantic  mind. 

But  in  any  life-giving  play  or  art  these  shapeless  and 
narcotizing  waves  of  sound  or  motion  meet  their  own 
type  of  control.   There  are  rules  of  the  game,  conven- 


132  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

tions  of  the  art,  a  climax,  opportunities  for  originality 
and  courage.  Even  the  loosest  nonsense-book,  the 
roughest  horse-play,  obeys  some  unwritten  code  of 
laws.  Despite  the  groping,  sprawling  outbursts  of 
energy,  it  is  still  pointed  towards  a  vaguely  defined  end. 

It  is  to  be  admitted  that  the  utterly  loose  and  form- 
less plays,  like  rocking,  swinging,  and  gum-chewing, 
bring  with  them  a  fascination  of  their  own.  If  we  sur- 
render ourselves  to  them  we  may  succeed  in  loosing 
ourselves.  Then  our  finite  sorrows  as  well  as  our  hot 
ambitions  are  swallowed  up.  But  such  an  empty  in- 
finity devoid  of  meaning  and  activity  is,  for  Christian 
people,  and  for  any  one  not  poisoned  by  opium  or  by 
the  idea  of  Nirvana,  a  hell,  not  a  heaven. 

We  must  admit,  then,  that  every  game  has  in  it  the 
seeds  of  degeneration.  Like  any  fine  art  it  can  easily 
slide  over  into  sensualism  and  fooling.  There  is  truth 
in  the  reproach  directed  against  art  by  the  "practical" 
men  and  against  play  by  the  anti-kindergartners. 
The  soft,  pleasure-seeking,  enervating  effeminacy  of  the 
mere  aesthete  is  a  danger  always  threatening  us  both 
in  the  fine  arts  and  in  play.  But  any  one  who  realizes 
this  danger  can  give  the  alarm  and  call  the  police  when 
he  finds  that  a  game,  a  song,  or  a  dance  is  beginning 
to  be  dominated  by  the  Infinite  Void  in  the  shape  of 
slow  rhythm.  We  must  clearly  recognize  that  every 
intense  delight  is  a  trap  unless  treated  lightly,  symbol- 
ically, or  as  a  climax.  Crystals  are  refreshing  and  re- 
juvenating if  we  glance  at  them  and  pass  on.    But 


TRANCE  IN  PLAY  133 

crystal-gazing  is  a  disease  which  splits  apart  the  united 
soul. 

"He  who  bends  to  himself  a  Joy 
Doth  the  winged  life  destroy. 
But  he  who  kisses  a  Joy  as  it  flies 
Lives  in  Eternity's  sunrise." 

(Blake.) 

To  bend  the  Joy  to  one's  self,  to  cling  to  it,  prolong 
it,  imagine  it  extended  to  eternity,  crushes  out  its  life 
in  satiety  or  in  the  coma  of  somnolent  ease. 

"Move  on"  is  the  watchword  of  the  Lord,  obeyed 
in  every  live  play  and  art,  as  it  is  in  every  animal  tissue 
that  holds  off  death  by  reincarnation.  But  this  eternal 
and  ever  valid  command  meets  in  play  and  art  an 
obstacle. 

*'Got  what  I  want,*'  says  Play. 

**  Bound  for  death  in  trance  if  you  stick  there,"  is  the 
answer. 

For  what  decent  human  being  is  so  smug  that  he 
wants  to  remain  as  he  is?  Your  vision  of  beauty  and 
delight  is  a  call  to  action.  Intense  emotion  calls  for 
intense  and  far-reaching  action  in  response  to  the  call 
note  of  beauty.  In  work  we  know  this  well  enough. 
In'art  and  play  we  are  tempted  to  forget  it,  and  try  to 
snatch  at  heaven.  For  play  is  a  little  heaven,  a  symbol 
and  foretaste  of  that  closer  hold  on  God  which  in  wor- 
ship is  still  more  nearly  attained. 

To  kill  time  and  personality  instead  of  using  them 
is  the  defect  of  the  trance-like  types  of  arts  and  play. 


134  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

There  is  no  proper  response,  novelty,  and  adventure 
in  them,  —  no  moving  on  from  life  to  greater  life,  as 
there  ought  to  be  in  work,  play,  love,  and  worship 
alike.  Lacking  response,  any  one  of  these  four  blessings 
will  soothe  us  into  passivity,  and  become  at  last  a 
curse.  When  work  deadens  and  enslaves  us  by  its  monot- 
ony, it  is  because  it  lacks  either  initiative  or  response. 
Slavery  is  all  give,  no  take;  but  the  slave  of  business 
habits  or  office  routine,  the  drudge  who  never  sees  the 
product  of  his  own  labor,  gets  no  more  response  from 
earth  or  soul  than  the  beast  of  burden.  Pay  is,  indeed, 
a  symbol  of  response;  we  take  it  in  answer  to  our 
effort.  But  this  symbol,  like  a  dead  religious  rite,  may 
become  a  mere  form  unless  there  is  life  or  substance 
behind  it. 

Play  and  art,  then,  like  commerce,  live  by  the  inter- 
change of  value.  Barter  is  native  to  all  games  and  all 
creative  work.  By  the  swapping  of  values,  beauty  as 
well  as  wealth  is  distributed.  But  if  one  tries  to  main- 
tain converse  with  the  empty  air  or  passively  to  breathe 
in  the  spirit  of  beauty,  sleep  or  lethargy  results.  "You 
bet  they  do,"  said  a  "practical"  man  to  me  the  other 
day;  "and  that's  why  artists  are  such  a  lot  of  sensual 
loafers.  They  howl  against  us  commercial  people,  but 
in  the  clubs  and  wherever  the  fleshpots  are,  you  '11  find 
the  artists  congregated  like  flies  and  not  paying  their 
debts  either." 

To  escape  such  reproaches  the  devotee  of  art  or 
of  sport  must  prove  to  us  that  he  can  recognize  and 


TRANCE  IN  PLAY  135 

escape  the  dangers  of  trance  and  lethargy  which  lurk 
near  his  road.  For  his  efforts  must  always  aspire  to 
be  crowned  with  a  moment  of  ecstasy  and  in  ecstasy 
he  will  linger  till  it  becomes  lethargy,  unless  he  has 
something  of  the  Puritan  or  of  the  ascetic  in  him,  some 
Briinhilde  who  beckons  him  on  like  Siegfried  from 
present  victory  *'zu  neuen  Thaten.** 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CHAOTIC  PLAYS,   DISJOINTED   PLAYS,  AND  OTHERS 

Much  of  our  physiological  need  for  recreation  is  in 
truth  not  a  need  for  rest,  but  for  freer  activity.  We 
must  bend  and  huddle  over  our  work  to  get  it  done 
without  mistakes;  but  the  stoop  leaves  us  cramped. 
We  want  to  stretch.  Self-control,  which  is  essential  in 
good  work,  results  not  merely  in  the  guidance  of  some 
energies  but  the  suspension  of  many  more.  The  col- 
legian at  his  studies  is  far  more  conscious  of  a  generail 
repression  than  of  any  particular  guidance.  Some 
one  is  sitting  on  the  lid  of  him;  that  is  his  chief  im- 
pression. 

Now,  in  play,  somebody  gets  off  the  lid  and  what- 
ever is  beneath  flies  up,  with  all  the  stored  energy  of 
repression,  —  provided  the  cramp  has  not  been  too 
long  continued.  In  time  repression  may  produce  such 
atrophy  and  flaccidity  of  our  mental  muscles  that  we 
are  incapable  of  play.  But  if  the  great  muscles  of  the 
soul,  unused  in  ordinary  work,  have  not  degenerated, 
one  of  the  greatest  blessings  of  play  is  to  unleash  our 
straining  energies. 

Watch  a  dog  that  has  been  tied  up,  yapping  and 
springing  to  the  limit  of  his  chain,  while  his  master  is 
getting  ready  for  a  walk.  This  is  what  work  means  to 


GOOD  AND   BAD   PLAY  137 

many.  Then  watch  him  when  the  chain  is  snapped  off; 
how  he  rushes  away  ventre  d  terre,  every  particle  of  his 
energy  flung  into  each  bark  and  leap,  as  he  tears  hither 
and  thither.  He  does  not  know  or  care  what  he  is  after. 
He  knows  only  that  he  is  free  and  that  the  whole  of  him 
is  in  action.  Children  just  out  of  school  explode  with  the 
same  whole-hearted  and  formless  glee.  We  say  that 
the  holiday  spirit  is  in  them.  But  anxious  householders 
(with  orchards  or  gardens  near  by)  say  that  the  devil 
is  in  them.  For  like  the  dog  just  unleashed,  they  will 
run  over  anything  and  anybody  that  happens  to  stand 
in  the  path  of  their  rush.  Respectable  elderly  people 
ruefully  tolerate  the  destructive  explosions  of  youthful 
energy,  or  lament  the  lack  of  application  and  dili- 
gence in  the  young  people  of  to-day.  It  is  hard  for 
"grown-ups'*  to  realize  that  application  and  diligence 
bring  with  them  necessary  evils,  which  it  is  one  of 
the  tasks  of  play  to  undo;  hard  to  appreciate  the 
wild  onrush  of  youth's  torrents.  Spring  torrents  they 
certainly  are,  for  they  issue  in  destruction  as  well  as 
beauty. 

Play  has  in  it  some  of  this  torrential  energy  demand- 
ing relief.  It  wants  to  get  out  and  it  ought  to  get  out, 
It'is  unhealthy  and  destructive  for  the  human  spirit 
to  issue  forth  always  in  parsimonious  driblets,  as  it 
must  in  work,  never  letting  out  its  full  force.  Play  bal- 
ances work  because  for  children  and  childlike  adults  it 
is  one  of  the  most  wholehearted  things  that  they  ever 
do,  —  almost  as  enfranchising  as  a  sneeze.    Birds  sing 


138  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

and  puppies  bark  not  merely  with  their  throats,  but 
with  their  tails  and  with  every  intermediate  bit  of 
themselves.  More  of  this  freedom  we  all  need ;  more  to- 
tality flung  into  our  days.  Athletics  provides  glimpses 
of  such  an  outlet  to  one,  music  to  another,  drunkenness, 
I  suppose  (for  lack  of  a  better),  to  a  third;  but  no  play 
can  satisfy  our  hunger  for  total  and  sincere  expression. 
Worship  is  the  outlet  which  we  really  need.  Play  is  a 
useful  safety-valve,  but  the  safety-valve  is  hardly  more 
beautiful  than  the  steam  whistle.  It  lets  off  energy; 
but  that  is  the  best  we  can  say  of  it. 

"Expense  regardless  of  pleasure"  is  the  formula  for 
some  of  the  worst  forms  of  architecture,  interior  dec- 
oration, and  dress.  Expenditure  of  energy,  careless  of 
form,  goal,  or  skill,  is  the  formula  for  a  good  deal  of 
bad  play,  —  bad  if  it  continues  long  enough  to  be  called 
play  at  all.  An  occasional  "barbaric  yawp,**  a  brief 
"fit  of  the  giggles,"  may  give  harmless  relief;  yet  it  is 
neither  play  nor  sin.  So  moderate  doses  of  horse-play 
in  the  right  place  and  time  do  no  harm;  but  prolonged, 
premeditated  horse-play  soon  becomes  as  tiresome  to 
the  players  as  to  the  spectators.  It  is  chaotic,  and  only 
the  degenerate  can  take  chaos  in  large  doses,  without 
a  desire  to  force  order  into  it. 

Besides  the  trance-like  plays  and  the  chaotic  plays 
there  is  another  low-grade  variety  which  we  may  call 
the  ' '  scrappy '  *  or  "  flashy  *  *  plays.  Most  of  these  games 
provide  their  own  funerals,  for  they  dissipate  desire 


GOOD  AND   BAD   PLAY  139 

without  satisfying  it;  but  some  of  them  linger  on  in 
deserted  corners  because  they  are  not  challenged  and 
killed  out  by  better  sports.  If  boys  can  think  of  nothing 
better  to  do,  they  will  wander  about,  stare  in  an  aim- 
less and  vacant  way  at  the  doings  of  their  elders,  or 
tear  things  to  bits,  not  from  curiosity  to  know  what  is 
inside  them,  but  from  mere  restlessness.  Adults  in  the 
same  mood  twiddle  their  fingers,  tap  with  their  feet, 
and  read  miscellaneous  newspaper  items.  Picking  up 
cigarette  stubs  and  teasing  the  "cop"  are  also  scrappy 
games,  yet  redeemed  to  some  extent  because  they  con- 
tain a  leaven  of  adventure  which  raises  them  above 
mere  lumpishness.  They  soon  lose  their  fascination, 
however,  when  boys  get  the  chance  and  the  brains  for 
baseball,  for  scouting,  or  any  play  which  calls  for  more 
originality,  more  accumulation  of  skill,  and  more  team- 
work. 

Gambling,  the  king  of  bad  plays,  is  both  scrappy, 
—  because  no  one  can  carry  out  a  plan,  —  and  passive 
or  lethargic.  You  get  your  result,  for  gain  or  loss, 
without  any  proportionate  effort.  You  open  your 
mouth,  shut  your  eyes,  and  take  what  comes.  But  what 
you  give  has  no  relation  to  what  you  take.  There  is  no 
response  and  no  progress. 

Just  here,  threatening  to  smash  the  thesis  which  I 
meant  to  maintain,  comes  the  thought :  But  God  treats 
us  just  this  way  now  and  then!  He  gives  us  friends, 
powers,  delights,  and  also  black  losses  that  we  have 
done  nothing  to  deserve,  and  when  we  fail  to  live  up  to 


140  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

them  he  still  gives  and  forgives  again  and  again.  The 
gambler,  then,  is  the  man  who  tries  to  play  God's  part, 
to  scale  the  walls  of  heaven  and  act  as  Providence  to 
himself.  He  disintegrates  morally  because  it  is  not  for 
us  to  decide  when  we  are  to  have  a  perfectly  unmerited 
gift  or  an  unearned  sorrow. 

A  summary  of  the  good  and  bad  elements  in  play 
may  help  to  pull  this  chapter  together.  In  bad  play  we 
may  find  rhythm  dominant  and  all  other  form  sacri- 
ficed. Rules,  limits,  and  finish  are  at  the  minimum. 
Dash,  risks,  construction,  and  originality  are  not  en- 
couraged. Everything  is  bound,  with  the  fetters  of  per- 
fect safety  or  of  perfect  fatalism.  People  can  keep  up 
a  bad  game  indefinitely  or  fitfully  without  a  tendency 
to  rebound  into  work  or  constructive  thought.  Pas- 
sivity and  receptivity  are  so  completely  in  possession 
of  us  that  there  is  little  for  the  "actor"  to  do  but  to 
sit  still  until  he  becomes  a  mere  spectator.  Gambling, 
listening  to  lectures,  gossip,  swinging,  rocking,  chewing 
tobacco  or  gum,  opium-smoking,  and,  in  some  people, 
cigarette-smoking,  are  amusements  of  the  vicious  type. 
They  have  no  end  or  form.  They  leave  you  as  passion- 
less and  passive  as  the  suburbanite  reading  his  after- 
breakfast  newspaper  on  the  train  to  town. 

Good  play  is  subject  to  rules;  it  has  a  clear-cut  form 
and  organization.  It  may  use  rhythm  and  repetition, 
but  subordinates  them  to  improvisation  and  adven- 
ture.    It  gives  intense   and  varied   delight,   but  in 


GOOD  AND  BAD   PLAY  141 

such  dynamic  form  that  pleasure  is  ever  quickly  lost 
and  found  again.  It  is  full  of  give-and-take,  dramati- 
cally loses  its  life  to  find  it,  and  ever  seeks,  asks,  knocks 
at  the  door  of  the  unexplored.  Its  house  is  full  of  sym- 
bols and  empty  of  idols. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  GAME,  OR  ART,  OF  IMPERSONATION  IN  WORK. 
PLAY,  AND  LOVE 

Play  is  drenched  with  symboHsm  and  ritual.  Think 
of  the  mystical  significance  of  being  "it"  in  tag,  or  in 
hide-and-seek!  A  unique  and  invisible  crown  of  dis- 
tinction descends  suddenly  upon  a  boy  and  he  is  "it." 
Just  the  tag,  just  the  mystical  laying-on  of  a  hand,  has 
transformed  your  harmless  and  undistinguished  fellow 
into  a  bearer  of  destiny  and  danger.  The  responsibil- 
ity may  fall  upon  any  one,  regardless  of  color,  creed,  or 
previous  condition  of  servitude;  but  how  swiftly  it 
transforms  one's  every  feature  and  movement!  Uni- 
form and  insignia  of  office  are  unnecessary  because 
every  one  sees  them  in  imagination. 

All  play  begins  with  such  an  impersonation.  Every 
player  assumes  a  part  and  if  time  permitted  should  be 
costumed.  The  lowly  second  hand  at  whist  should  cer- 
tainly have  a  costume  to  distinguish  him  from  the  dash- 
ing and  original  first  hand,  and  the  lordly,  judicial 
third  hand.  But  in  whist,  roles  are  exchanged  so  swiftly 
that  no  quartette  of  lightning-change  artists  could  keep 
pace  with  them.  The  musician  who  throws  himself 
into  his  music  assumes  in  each  piece  a  new  character. 
An  actor  of  extraordinary  versatility  he  thus  assumes 
himself  to  be,  and  he  fails  if  he  cannot  prevent  us 


THE  GAME^OF  IMPERSONATION       143 

from  recognizing  his  familiar  personality  sticking  out 
through  the  monkish  cowl  of  Bach,  the  Byronic  cloak 
of  Chopin,  and  the  goat-skin  mantle  of  Debussy. 

To  paint,  one  must  put  off  the  spectacles  of  every 
day  through  which  one  perceives  the  literal  and  utili- 
tarian aspects  of  nature,  and  put  on  a  mask  which  shuts 
away  one 's  ordinary  features  and  senses.  For  to  front 
nature  as  a  painter  is  to  be  blind  to  the  interests  of  the 
landowner,  farmer,  miner,  or  woodsman. 

This  ever-present  need  of  impersonation  in  play  and 
art  is  closely  bound  up  with  their  symbolism.  For  to  use 
symbolism  is  to  put  a  new  personality  into  an  object, 
while  impersonation  puts  a  new  personality  into  one*s 
self.  A  football  loose  in  a  broken  field  of  players  is  the 
very  incarnation  of  desire;  it  is  only  when  the  whistle 
blows  for  an  intermission  that  the  ball  becomes  as  dead 
as  the  dirt  beneath  it. 

Moreover,  though  impersonation  is  perhaps  more 
complete  and  successful  in  play  than  an3rw'here  else, 
play  enjoys  no  monopoly.  Play-acting  turns  up  in 
almost  every  department  of  life.  We  put  on  a  char- 
acter in  work,  in  love,  and  in  every  moral  effort.  In 
medical  work,  for  instance,  we  assume  at  the  start  the 
r61e  of  medical  student  and  try  to  play  that  sardonic 
part  with  success.  Underneath  the  mask  we  still  re- 
cognize ourselves  as  scatter-brained  boys,  but  we  do 
our  best  to  forget  this  and  to  maintain  the  disguise.  ^^ 
Next,  in  our  hospital  service,  we  don  the  white  coat 
and  the  lofty  airs  of  the  house-officer,  while  still  unused 


144  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

to  being  addressed  as  "doctor ''  and  feeling  a  bit  of  hum- 
bug in  the  title.  Finally  we  graduate  as  full-fledged 
doctors  and  sit  in  an  office  waiting  for  patients.  But 
there  we  are  more  than  ever  conscious  of  impersonat- 
ing some  one  woefully  different  from  ourselves.  We  are 
cast  for  the  part  of  the  wise  old  physician.  We  who  have 
been  in  scrapes  half  our  lives!  We,  who  are  in  terror 
that  our  ignorance  may  any  day  be  unmasked,  are  set 
here  to  inspire  others  with  confidence  in  our  wisdom! 
For  did  not  the  professor  tell  us  that  the  first  essential 
for  success  is  to  "gain  the  confidence  of  your  patient"? 
My !  what  a  fool  that  patient  will  be  if  he  gives  any  such 
confidence ! 

I  know  that  there  is  need  of  the  art  of  impersonation 
in  medical  work,  and  I  see  no  reason  to  believe  that  the 
budding  lawyer,  legislator,  or  plumber  feels  any  more 
at  home  in  his  r61e.  After  many  years  the  costume 
comes  to  fit  better,  and  when  our  growth  stops  alto- 
gether we  are  wholly  reconciled  to  our  part  and  begin 
to  take  ourselves  "seriously."  In  time  we  may  even  be 
persuaded  (if  we  are  dull  and  credulous)  that  we  fill 
our  parts  well.  But  as  long  as  there  is  any  fresh  sap 
flowing  in  us,  we  shall  recognize  the  humor  and  the 
pathos  of  our  attempt  to  be  what  our  professional  title 
proclaims  us  to  be.  A  game  it  will  always  be,  a  game  to 
play  the  best  we  can,  to  practice  as  hard  and  learn  as 
thoroughly  as  our  nature  allows ;  but  still  a  game. 

Thus  art,  play,  and  impersonation  seep  into  every 
crack  and  crevice  of  the  structure  called  work.  Is  it  any 


THE  GAME  OF  IMPERSONATION       145 

different  in  love  and  friendship?  What  man  has  not 
suffered  from  stage  fright  when  set  to  impersonate  that 
most  august,  yet  most  versatile  and  accomplished 
character,  the  husband?  Nor  is  the  r61e  of  a  "friend** 
a  much  easier  one  to  play.  No  friend  feels  friendly  all 
the  time ;  yet  he  cannot  tear  off  his  wig  and  let  out  his 
raucous  natural  voice  every  time  that  he  happens  to 
feel  less  than  amicable.  Nor  can  he  throw  up  his  job 
whenever  he  feels  sulky  and  envious  of  those  who  play 
the  leading  r61es,  such  as  lover,  boss,  or  professor! 

What  more  exciting  game,  what  more  difficult  art! 
It  is  not  all  play.  Mighty  hard  work  sometimes.  But 
the  spirit  of  play  has  come  to  aid  the  spirit  of  work. 
Effort  and  fruition,  work  and  play,  are  interwoven  as 
tightly  as  the  strands  in  a  carpet. 

One  more  word  about  the  art  of  impersonation  in 
relation  to  knowledge  and  to  love.  Sympathy  is  ad- 
mittedly a  long  step  towards  love.  Sympathy  with  every 
product  of  creation  is  the  desire  of  every  one  who  wants 
to  live  intelligently  in  the  world  and  not  monkishly  out- 
side it.  There  is  no  comprehension  without  sympathy, 
and  sympathy  means  impersonation.  Therefore,  to  be 
able  to  impersonate  like  an  actor  every  scoundrel  and 
simpleton,  every  wind  of  prejudice  and  current  of 
politics,  brings  us  to  the  limit  of  pure  intelligence  and  to 
the  threshold  of  love.  How  can  we  deal  wisely  with 
the  simpleton,  justly  with  the  scoundrel,  unless  we 
learn  to  put  ourselves,  like  an  actor,  in  their  places? 


s 

\ 


146  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

This  involves  no  danger  of  adopting  permanently  the 
characters  that  we  impersonate.  We  can  choose  good 
from  bad  all  the  more  clearly  if  we  know  them  inti- 
mately, by  true  sympathy.  To  cultivate  love  sounds 
mawkish  and  unnatural,  but  to  cultivate  sympathy 
is  a  large  part  of  liberal  education.  I  can  see  no  limit 
to  the  benefit  of  impersonative  sympathy  in  a  well- 
balanced  mind.  I  have  a  friend  who  likes  to  imperson- 
ate a  wave  or  a  bam  swallow.  I  am  sure  he  gets  closer 
than  the  rest  of  us  to  the  life  of  waves  and  swallows 
because  he  loves  to  shape  himself  into  their  image. 
It  is  hard,  I  admit,  for  swift,  locomotive  Americans 
to  impersonate  (as  Oriental  mystics  do)  the  rigid  im- 
mobility of  the  tree  or  the  smiling  passivity  of  sunshine, 
but  we  must  acknowledge  our  limitation.  Only  the 
narrowly  anthropomorphic  can  be  content  to  say,  "I 
count  nothing  human  as  foreign  to  me."  What  about 
the  non-human  world?  No  doubt  our  nearest  kith  and 
kin  should  come  first.  Charity  begins  at  home  and 
impersonation,  the  servant  and  forerunner  of  charity, 
should  naturally  begin  with  the  imitation  of  Christ. 
But  when  he  told  us  to  consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
he  did  not  invite  us  to  look  down  upon  them  patron- 
izingly nor,  at  the  other  extreme,  to  worship  their 
beauty.  He  meant  us  to  divest  ourselves  of  human 
prejudices  and  to  recognize  their  superiority  to  us  in 
certain  traits,  —  worthy  our  respectful  and  sympa- 
thetic imitation. 

Impersonation,  then,  is  an  art  much  needed  in  order 


THE  GAME  OF  IMPERSONATION       147 

to  prepare  and  discipline  our  stiff-necked  individuality 
for  the  love  and  the  knowledge  of  all  created  beings. 

Impersonation  includes  the  whole  field  of  morality: 
**  Be  a  brave  girl  and  don't  cry  " ;  "  Behave  like  a  gentle- 
man"; "Take  a  man's  part  in  this  fight."  Such  ex- 
hortations bid  us  assume  a  virtue  if  we  have  it  not,  and 
in  assuming  it  to  impersonate  a  better  self.  So  long  as 
we  are  growing,  so  long  as  we  are  divided  within  our- 
selves, striving  to  be  or  to  become  what  as  yet  we  are 
not  (but  ought  to  be),  there  is  impersonation  in  our 
effort. 

Why,  then,  is  a  school  of  acting  not  the  only  school 
of  morality?  Because  in  learning  to  act  we  are  trained 
to  suppleness  of  impersonation ;  we  are  taught  to  sym- 
pathize with  any  character  so  deeply  that  it  becomes 
for  the  time  ours.  An  actor  should  be  able  to  imper- 
sonate a  mean  sneak  or  a  cruel  liar  as  sympathetically 
as  he  dons  the  hero's  mantle.  Carry  this  process  to 
the  limit  and  a  man's  native  character  could  be  dis- 
solved not  developed,  his  moral  vision  dazzled  not 
clarified,  and  his  progress  towards  his  own  personal 
ideals  nil.  But  of  course  the  actor,  even  of  the  Salvini 
tradition,  does  not  carry  acting  to  the  limit.  He  leads 
his  own  life  and  minds  his  own  business  both  on  the 
stage  and  off.  In  so  doing  he  chooses,  as  we  all  do,  the 
sort  of  personality  (which  means  a  mask)  that  shall  be 
his.  He  is  no  longer  impartial  and  pliant.  He  is  himself. 

The  sort  of  impersonation  which  is  the  whole  of 


148  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

morality,  and  constitutes  a  large  part  of  work,  play, 
and  love,  differs  from  theatricality,  first  because  each 
actor  chooses  the  part  which  he  thinks  will  best  suit 
him  and  tries  to  stick  to  it  (more  or  less  successfully) 
until  he  sees  a  better.  He  is  not  at  all  ready  to  play  the 
heavy  old  gentleman,  the  dastardly  villain,  or  the  dis- 
appointed lover.  He  claps  the  lid  upon  his  sympathies 
when  they  run  to  self-pity.  The  professional  actor 
must  welcome  the  opportunity  sympathetically  to 
impersonate  self-pity  like  any  other  characteristic.  In 
life  one  does  not  practice  the  art  of  losing  one's  temper 
or  beating  one's  wife,  but  on  the  stage  these  accom- 
plishments are  strictly  in  the  line  of  business. 

I  have  said  that  impersonation  is  the  whole  of  moral- 
ity. The  growing  sapwood  of  our  nature,  all  that  is 
struggling  against  itself  towards  perfection,  advance- 
ment, or  skill,  is  perpetually  passing  in  and  out  of  the 
art  of  impersonation.  All  this?  What,  then,  is  left? 
Very  little,  it  appears ;  for  are  we  not  to  be  ever  press- 
ing forward  towards  the  mark  of  our  high  calling?  Does 
not  all  that  is  decent  in  us  want  to  be  up  and  growing 
more  decent?  Shall  we  not  perpetually  aspire,  or  at 
any  rate  "climb"? 

No.  For  the  morality  of  impersonation  and  self- 
conquest  is  not  the  whole  of  life.  At  our  worst  we 
sink  below  impersonation ;  but  at  our  best  we  rise  above 
it.  There  is  no  impersonation  in  heroism.  A  self-con- 
scious, theatrical  hero  is  a  contradiction  in   terms. 


THE  GAME  OF  IMPERSONATION       149 

Either  he  is  carried  away  by  his  impulse  or  he  is  no  more 
heroic  than  you  or  I.  Art,  when  it  rises  beyond  talent 
to  genius,  is  the  product  of  a  present  self-surrender, 
though  perhaps  of  a  past  self-conquest.  Overwhelming 
grief  is  no  impersonation.    It  is  elementally  sincere. 

On  the  other  hand,  innocence  is  not  impersonation. 
Children  pass  through  a  period  when  there  is  no  per- 
ceptible division  of  better  against  worse,  no  straining 
towards  a  future,  no  attempt  to  be  other  than  they 
are.  In  this  Blilthezeit  they  attain  perfections  which 
their  elders  never  reach.  Or,  quite  uncorrupted,  they 
may  commit  acts  which  in  an  adult  would  be  sin. 

Adults,  I  believe,  occasionally  lapse  or  escape  into 
this  innocence.  *^I  never  hear  the  word  escape,"  says 
Emily  Dickinson,  *' without  a  quicker  blood,  a  sudden 
expectation,  a  flying  attitude."  In  the  vast  majority 
of  us,  such  passion  to  escape  is  simply  a  blunder  or  a 
bit  of  selfishness,  and  corrupts  when  it  conquers.  But 
it  may  be  a  flash  of  genius ;  it  may  rush  into  musical  or 
metrical  composition.  It  may  also  be  an  irruption  of 
the  animal  in  us  which  wrecks  lives  around  us,  yet 
leaves  us  ourselves  unscathed  because  there  has  been 
no  yielding,  nor  any  informing  consciousness  of  what 
we  are  about.  In  one's  self  l^  Is  safe  to  assume  that  such 
passivity  is  always  bad.  But  let  us  sometimes  give 
others  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  They  may  be  feeble- 
minded.  They  may  be  innocent. 

Impersonation,  then,  is  essentially  playful.  Yet  it 
penetrates  into  every  part  of  active  life,  plays  its  part 


150  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

in  work,  in  love,  and  even  in  worship,  which  must 
be  learned  like  everything  else  by  throwing  ourselves 
whole-heartedly  into  what  seems  at  first  strange. 
This  means  that  the  divisions  named  in  the  title  of 
this  book  are  not  mutually  independent.  Like  key, 
time,  shading,  and  timbre  in  music,  the  four  energies 
of  which  I  am  writing  cannot  be  torn  apart  without 
wounds  or  death  for  all.  In  a  book  one  can  fix  atten- 
tion on  one  at  a  time,  but  in  life  they  constantly  inter- 
act. The  better  the  life,  the  more  perfectly  they  answer 
one  another,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  in  the  final  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  PENETRATION  OF  WORK  BY  PLAY    AND  THE 
MINOR  ARTS 

I  WAS  watching  the  engineer  of  the  train  which  I 
left  at  the  terminus  the  other  day,  as  he  climbed  down 
from  his  cab  for  a  word  or  two  with  the  conductor.  In 
their  talk  you  could  see  "work"  and  **play"  swiftly 
alternating  and  interweaving  as  they  do  so  often  in 
American  life.  First  there  was  a  moment  of  work,  — 
the  exchange  of  serious  professional  information.  Then 
I  heard  a  reference  to  **  the  old  man  "  (whoever  he  was)^ 
and  instantly  fun  began  to  roll  about  in  their  cheeks 
like  a  quid  of  tobacco.  Feet  and  legs  began  to  twitch, 
sketching  suggestions  of  a  cake-walk  or  a  double- 
shuffle,  while  words  were  jerked  out  in  snatches  over 
their  shoulders.  Business  flashed  in  again  when  a 
passing  brakeman  hooked  his  hand  into  the  conductor's 
elbow  and  emitted  a  brief  message.  Their  faces  fell 
and  stiffened  for  an  instant,  but  relaxed  again  as  the 
engineer  pulled  himself  up  the  perpendicular  cab-steps 
with  a  parting  witticism. 

In  America  this  leaven  of  humor  is,  I  suppose,  the 
commonest  of  the  interpenetrating  minor  arts.  As  it 
plays  through  and  around  the  dullest  tasks,  one  wonders 
whether  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  drudgery  may 
not  come  in  part  through  learning  to  get  our  work  done 


152  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

as  automatically  and  unconsciously  as  we  perform  the 
huge  labor  of  breathing.  Consciousness  might  mean- 
time be  occupied  with  something  better  worth  while. 
Many  people  whistle  or  sing  as  they  work,  and  I  think 
it  is  especially  in  the  dullest  jobs  like  housework  and 
coal-heaving  that  I  have  heard  them  sing. 

The  engineer  and  conductor  whose  skillful  inter- 
weaving of  work  and  play  I  tried  just  now  to  sketch, 
remind  me  of  another  dull  job,  irradiated  by  the  beauty 
of  art.  To  take  tickets  as  one  walks  down  the  aisle  of 
a  railway  car  is  ordinarily  a  very  serious  and  mechan- 
ical process,  dull  work  if  not  drudgery.  I  have  occasion- 
ally seen  it  done  with  pleasure  and  grace  by  a  chatty 
and  amusing  conductor,  but  the  greatest  triumph 
of  art  that  I  remember  was  the  performance  of  M. 
on  a  suburban  branch  of  the  Boston  and  Albany  Rail- 
road. For  though  he  lacked  the  facilities  of  gossip  and 
humor,  he  succeeded  in  making  the  dry  act  of  surren- 
dering one's  ticket  a  pleasure  to  every  suburbanite  who 
rode  on  that  branch. 

The  exquisite,  deferential,  and  courtly  was  his  line. 
He  wore  the  regular  conductor's  uniform  of  dark-blue 
cloth  and  brass  buttons,  but  he  contrived  to  keep  the 
blue  so  glossy  and  the  brass  so  resplendent  that  his 
entrance  quite  lighted  up  the  car.  He  had,  as  I  have 
said,  no  conversational  powers.  Perhaps  it  was  this  lack 
which  led  him  to  the  quaint  but  pleasant  habit  of  carry- 
ing a  rosebud,  or  some  other  flower,  in  his  lips.  It 
sounds  expensive ;  perhaps  he  was  a  disguised  mil- 


PLAY   IN  WORK  153 

lionaire  and  gathered  the  blossoms  in  his  own  green- 
house each  day.  Anyway,  he  carried  the  perfume  and 
fresh  beauty  of  somebody's  greenhouse  into  those  dingy 
cars  every  day  throughout  the  winter  that  I  rode  with 
him. 

He  took  each  ticket  with  a  slight  bow  and  just  the 
ghost  of  a  smile,  but  most  characteristic  of  all  was  the 
reverential  care  with  which  he  received  the  ticket,  as 
if  to  express  his  sense  of  the  great  favor  that  you  did 
him  in  surrendering  it  at  all.  He  reminded  me  of  the 
minister's  gracious  tenderness  as  he  takes  a  baby  from 
its  mother  to  baptize  it. 

With  the  reception  of  the  ticket  M.'s  art  ceased 
abruptly.  He  punched  it  like  any  other  machine. 
Could  he  have  done  otherwise,  I  wonder?  Could 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac  have  punched  each  ticket  with 
spirit  and  originality?  Is  there  an  irreducible  residue  of 
pure,  eternal  drudgery?  Surely  not.  You  and  I  reach 
our  limit.  We  are  checked  by  something  we  cannot 
mould  to  the  purpose  of  art,  —  something  that  re- 
mains hard  work  and  nothing  else.  But  then  you  and 
I  cannot  take  tickets  like  M.,  nor  make  rhymes  while 
we  fence  like  Cyrano.  We  are  still  too  serious  and  self- 
cojiscious;  but  there  are  hopes  for  us  yet  with  the  Jews, 
Irish,  and  Italians  pouring  in  to  leaven  our  lump  of 
Anglo-Saxondom. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

BY-PRODUCTS  OF  PLAY:  CONSECRATION  OF    PLAY 

The  central  value  of  play  is  apt  to  be  obscured  by 
over-emphasis  upon  its  minor  issues.  Among  these  are 
health  and  disease,  pleasure  and  honor,  education  and 
victory. 

Health  as  I  have  already  said,  sometimes  results  from 
some  games  and  arts.  Thus  well-to-do  girls  on  the 
whole  probably  get  physical  benefit  from  dancing  par- 
ties, though  the  late  hours  and  bad  air  go  far  to  neutral- 
ize any  benefit.  Whist  and  chess,  painting  and  music 
probably  do  us  more  harm  than  good  physically,  but 
no  one  abandons  them,  or  ought  to  abandon  them  on 
that  account.  The  net  hygienic  results  of  college  foot- 
ball have  been  calculated  differently  by  different  ob- 
servers. I  believe  that  they  are  good  on  the  whole, 
though  not  in  every  team  or  in  every  member  of  any 
team.  But  even  if  the  bad  hygienic  results  overbal- 
anced the  good  (as  I  think  they  do  in  music),  I  should 
believe  in  the  game  just  the  same.  Many  a  player  looks 
back  upon  his  football  career  and  is  glad  of  k  for  the 
sake  of  the  game  itself,  though  he  bear  the  honorable 
scars  of  contest. 

Pleasure  certainly  bears  an  organic  relation  to  play. 
Unless  for  money  or  some  other  extraneous  reason,  no 


REWARDS  AND  GOALS  155 

one,  I  suppose,  pursues  an  art  or  game  which  is  painful 
on  the  whole.  On  the  other  hand,  many  pleasurable 
acts ; —  sucking  candy,  for  instance  —  are  not  games 
or  arts.  Pleasure  is  the  sense  of  getting  what  we  want, 
and  play  is  one  of  the  things  which  we  want.  Pleasure, 
therefore,  accompanies  it  as  it  also  accompanies  wor- 
ship, the  receipt  of  money,  the  process  of  going  to 
sleep,  and  many  other  non-playful  acts.  It  is  a  natural 
accompaniment  of  play,  but  not  a  mark  by  which  to 
characterize  it. 

The  education  of  minds  and  muscles  by  play  is  of 
great  value.  It  also  helps  to  educate  us  towards  self- 
control,  originality,  and  many  other  good  qualities. 
But  education,  like  pleasure,  must  usually  be  forgot- 
ten if  you  are  to  attain  it  in  play.  If  you  think  of  your 
feet  while  dancing,..you  cannot  dance.  If  you  think 
of  your  educational  gain  or  your  pleasure-income  while 
you  are  in  the  heat  of  play,  you  will  miss  both.  For 
mental  Integrity  —  knitting  up  the  divided  mind  — 
is  essential  to  play.  To  throw  one's  self  into  a  game,  as 
good  players  do,  is  to  forget  one's  self  and  all  one's 
possible  earnings. 

Victory  is  the  part  of  play  most  often  abnormally 
prominent  in  popular  games.  Of  course  nobody  wants 
to  fail  in  a  game  or  anything  else ;  but  when  one  loses 
one  grants  to  be  a  good  loser,  and  this  art  of  being  a 
good  loser  is  half  the  battle  both  in  good  play  and 
in  good  living.   If  it  is  a  pure  misery  to  lose  (as  it  is 


156  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

in  gambling),  then  the  game  or  the  player  Is  debased. 
Furthermore,  if  the  only  satisfaction  is  in  winning,  all 
close  games  are  misery  until  the  result  is  known,  and 
then  they  are  over.  This  predominance  of  what  we 
don't  want  would  soon  drive  us  into  disgust  with 
any  game,  if  winning  were  its  only  point.  That  most 
boys  like  to  play  games,  such  as  football  and  baseball, 
which  are  often  close,  that  boys  dislike  one-sided  games 
and  weak  opponents,  proves  that  the  desire  to  win  is 
not  the  only  motive  nor  the  chief  one.  Yet  the  desire  to 
win  must  be  a  factor,  else  the  game  is  tasteless. 

In  all  good  sport,  then,  we  are  in  a  paradoxical  state 
of  mind.  We  want  to  win,  but  we  want  still  more  to 
play  the  game  according  to  the  rules  and  against  a 
tough  antagonist.  We  want  to  win  fairly  and  in  a  con- 
test that  puts  us  on  our  mettle.  To  win  easily  is  not 
much  fun.  To  win  by  cheating  leaves  us  aware  that, 
in  fact,  we  did  not  win  at  all.  Cheating  is  rife  especially 
among  two  groups  of  players ;  first,  those  who  are  play- 
ing for  money  (salaries,  bets,  or  bribes)  or  who  have 
lost  their  interest  in  the  game  itself;  secondly,  among 
beginners  who  have  never  acquired  much  fondness  for 
it.  Cheating  is  also  common  in  all  games  with  ill- 
defined  rules,  games  such  as  horse-dealing  and  the  man- 
ipulation of  investments. 

Education  towards  good  sport  consists  in  the  proper 
placing  of  the  desire  to  win,  a  desire  which  is  essentially 
the  same  in  athletics,  professional  life,  and  moral  as- 
piration. Walking,  talking,  eating,  running  after  one's 


REWARDS  AND  GOALS  157 

hat,  —  every  conceivable  act  wants  to  win  its  goal. 
The  presence  of  a  visible  competitor  is  not  essential. 
Winning  and  losing  feel  much  the  same  whether  there 
is  a  human  competitor  or  not.  For  when  you  win  you 
always  defeat  something  (if  not  somebody).  To  be 
beaten  by  the  waves  when  you  are  trying  to  swim  the 
English  Channel  must  feel  very  much  the  same  as 
being  beaten  in  the  race  with  a  man.  The  worst  of  the 
disaster  is  in  losing,  not  in  losing  to  somebody  else. 
Unless  you  happen  to  hate  your  competitor,  you  do  not 
care  who  gets  the  trade  or  the  game  which  you  lose. 
It  is  your  own  loss  that  hurts,  because  it  is  a  blow  to 
pride  and  self-respect,  rather  than  because  it  deprives 
you  of  any  tangible  prize.  In  amateur  athletics  this 
point  is  usually  obvious,  though  the  social  honors 
naturally  paid  to  winners  somewhat  obscure  the  issue. 
Even  these  honors,  however,  show  that  the  heart  of 
the  desire  to  win  is  a  hunger  for  increased  self-respect. 
The  praise  of  others  feeds  our  fundamental  desire  **to 
make  good." 

Moral  aspiration  is  nothing  else  but  this  *' desire  to 
win"  generalized.  The  moral  aspirant,  like  the  athlete, 
has  to  learn  the  spirit  of  fair  play  and  good  sport.  His 
desire  to  win  must  be  disciplined  till  it  is  a  desire  either 
to  win  under  the  rules  of  life's  game  or  to  take  defeat 
in  good  part.  You  want  an  education,  a  chance  to  put 
your  powers  at  the  service  of  the  public,  an  opportun- 
ity to  know  the  people  who  will  show  you  your  limita- 


158  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

tions  and  tempt  you  beyond  them.  But  you  do  not 
want  these  prizes  unconditionally.  You  do  not  want 
education  if  you  have  to  steal  the  money  to  get  it. 
You  will  not  take  the  money  if  that  acceptance  means 
crushing  the  life  out  of  your  family,  draining  their 
resources  dry  in  order  to  push  you  ahead.  If  another 
member  of  your  family  can  obviously  do  better  with 
that  education  than  you  can,  family  affection  will 
make  you  want  your  own  defeat.  That  is  only  fair 
play.  The  popular  prayer,  "  May  the  best  man  win,*'  is 
as  appropriate  for  educational  aspiration  as  it  is  for 
athletics. 

This  prayer  is  the  absolute  and  unconditional  wish 
behind  all  the  renunciations  of  good  sport.  When  both 
teams  before  a  football  game  heartily  and  uncondition- 
ally wish  that  the  best  team  may  win,  they  can  both 
be  sure  (barring  flukes)  that  they  will  get  that  wish  ful- 
filled. So  in  a  sense  they  all  win,  whatever  happens. 
If  accidents  seriously  interfere  with  the  game,  it  ought 
to  be  played  over,  as  in  some  cases  it  is.  At  any  rate, 
fair  play  and  the  honest  desire  to  prove  which  team  is 
best,  demand  that  the  game  shall  be  played  over. 

Is  it  a  bodiless  abstraction,  —  this  desire  for  a  fair 
game,  this  chastened  but  mighty  desire  which  can  al- 
ways win  its  end?  On  the  contrary,  with  mature  play- 
ers (who  are  the  best  players)  the  desire  for  good  sport 
may  become  as  whole-hearted  and  natural  as  any  bodily 
appetite.  They  get  their  satisfaction,  as  singers  do,  in 
the  game  itself,  and  they  get  it  all  the  way  along,  not 


REWARDS  AND  GOALS  159 

simply  in  the  triumphant  termination  of  the  games 
which  they  happen  to  win.  Moreover,  they  are  al- 
ways thinking  of  other  games  and  in  this  sense  "never 
know  when  they  are  beaten."  They  try  to  learn  from 
each  game  (successful  or  unsuccessful)  what  will  serve 
to  win  the  next.  Thus  contests,  like  years  or  tennis 
games,  get  linked  up  in  sets,  and  our  losses  in  one  guide 
us  to  the  next.  In  view  of  what  went  wrong  in  the  last, 
one  plans  for  better  success,  or  at  any  rate  a  game  fight 
in  the  next. 

To  lose  a  game  or  a  political  fight,  without  losing 
one's  courage,  is  to  feed  on  the  invisible  when  visible 
food  is  taken  away.  Beaten  in  every  obvious  and  literal 
sense,  the  undiscouraged  loser  falls  back  upon  the  inner 
life.  He  takes  to  his  inner  line  of  defenses,  there  to 
maintain  the  fight  unbeaten  and  undismayed.  The 
"lost  cause"  becomes  idealized  into  something  which 
no  one  can  lose  until  he  loses  the  courage  to  fight  for 
it.  No  sensualist,  no  one  who  has  not  some  sort  of 
faith  in  the  ultimate  victory  of  the  invisible  right 
which  he  serves,  can  keep  his  courage  in  any  defeat, 
great  or  small. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  winner  can  avoid  conceit  and 
the  pride  which  traditionally  precedes  a  fall,  if  he  takes 
his  victory  at  its  face  value.  The  sympathy  and  ap- 
plause of  the  bystanders  are  rank  poison  to  a  winner 
who  has  not  learned  to  discount  them,  to  look  away 
from  them,  and  point  his  admirers  to  the  value  of  com- 
rades, the  wisdom  of  trainers,  the  good  luck  and  good 


i6o  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

teamwork  on  which  he  has  ridden  to  victory.  Standing 
as  the  product,  the  representative,  the  symbol  of  all 
these  great  forces,  he  can  take  his  victory  without 
inner  disaster. 

The  good  winner  is  apt  to  take  victory  lightly  for 
still  another  reason.  Like  the  good  loser,  he  is  always 
looking  forward  to  another  and  greater  contest.  Now 
that  he  has  topped  a  foothill,  he  sees  the  steeper  ranges 
ahead.  The  very  moment  of  victory  over  the  last  hill 
spreads  out  before  him  for  the  first  time  the  arduous 
prospect  of  the  one  ahead.  Victory,  literal  and  un- 
abashed, means  looking  backward.  The  good  winner 
looks  backward  too ;  he  is  not  blind  to  what  he  has  won; 
for  one  ecstatic  moment  he  tastes  its  full  sweetness,  but 
next  instant  he  looks  ahead  and  prepares  for  the 
harder  contest. 

The  consecration  of  play,  the  element  of  spiritual 
nobility  which  utilitarians  and  the  unplayful  cannot 
see  in  it,  is  the  necessary  result  of  faithfulness  to  an 
invisible  ideal  of  good  sport.  To  be  a  good  winner  and 
a  good  loser  is  a  wholly  spiritual  desire.  In  the  politi- 
cal battles  of  some  Spanish-American  republics,  the 
winning  party  guzzles  and  tyrannizes ;  the  losing  party 
revolts  and  tries  to  kill  or  banish  the  winning  team. 
This  means  simply  that  there  is  no  loyalty  to  the  rules 
of  the  game.  The  desire  to  win  is  unconditional;  the 
spoils  of  office  are  the  only  moving  power  and  the  only 
reward  of  the  winner.  The  loser  cherishes  no  hopes  for 
his  lost  "cause,"  but  sulks  or  storms. 


REWARDS  AND  GOALS  i6l 

But  in  good  sport  or  good  politics  there  emerges  the 
paradox  of  self-government,  the  subordination  of  a 
self  to  a  Self  (good  citizenship,  lawful  government,  fair 
play)  which  lives  on  and  deserves  our  best  service 
whether  we  win  or  lose.  In  good  sport  neither  success 
nor  failure  is  taken  at  its  face  value.  Victory  is  not 
purely  sweet ;  defeat  has  its  compensations.  The  cause 
which  you  work  for  in  athletics  is  rarely  recognized, 
I  suppose,  as  part  of  the  service  of  God.  But  in  honest 
politics  (for  which  "good  sport'*  is  certainly  the  best 
training)  most  sincere  enthusiasts  believe  themselves  to 
be  servants  of  "the  people," and  many  aspire  to  find, 
through  them,  the  will  of  God.  Ask  any  one  who  has 
worked  to  uphold  the  standard  of  good  sport  and  later 
has  labored  for  good  government,  whether  the  two 
efforts  do  not  call  for  the  same  spirit  and  exercise  the 
same  spiritual  muscles.  Not  only  leaders  and  prophets  of 
sport,  but  all  subordinate  players  who  obey  the  rules  of 
the  game  and  learn  to  be  good  winners  and  good  losers, 
are  working  to  uphold  the  standards  of  good  sport. 
They  are  practicing  the  art  of  taking  victory  and  de- 
feat symbolically ;  they  are  living  the  spiritual  life. 

I,  must  digress  at  this  point  to  explain  more  clearly 
what  I  mean  by  symbolism  both  in  play  and  outside 
it.  Most  of  us  hear  of  symbols  in  algebra  or  in  religion, 
but  have  no  idea  of  meeting  them  in  play.  Yet  to  my 
mind  play  without  symbolism  is  like  music  without 
notes  or  verse  without  words. 


i62  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

A  symbol  Is  a  representative,  standing  for  something 
greater  than  itself.  The  golden  balls  stand  for  the  pawn- 
broker, the  striped  suit  for  the  convict,  the  cross  for 
Christianity.  Increasingly  civilization  rests  on  symbol- 
ism, as  commerce  rests  on  credit.  Yet  to  the  unin- 
formed, all  symbols  are  meaningless.  The  savage  may 
value  an  old  newspaper  more  than  a  thousand-dollar 
bill,  because  the  newspaper  is  larger.  He  takes  the  bill 
as  literally  as  some  people  take  death  or  birth,  recog- 
nizing no  larger  value  behind  it.  The  bill  is  a  bit  of 
paper.  To  the  savage  it  is  nothing  more,  while  to  most 
of  us  it  is  hard  to  recall  the  time  when  we  saw  it  merely 
as  paper. 

The  great  value  of  symbols  is  that  they  enable  us  to 
handle  or  to  express  what  would  otherwise  be  too  great 
for  us.  To  carry  a  thousand  dollars  in  silver  or  gold 
would  make  swift  or  nimble  motions  impossible  and 
fatigue  always  imminent.  To  carry  about  and  barter 
the  goods  which  this  thousand  will  purchase  is  quite 
impracticable.  Hence  money-symbols  are  short  cuts 
and  labor-saving  devices.  When  word-symbols  replace 
our  earlier  picture  language,  we  save  the  time  needed 
to  draw  and  to  understand  the  pictures.  Further, 
people  are  enabled,  by  symbols  as  by  the  switching- 
towers  in  a  railway  yard,  to  plan  and  to  execute  much 
more  complex,  far-reaching,  and  accurate  results. 

Whether  in  play,  in  speech,  in  currency,  in  rejigion, 
or  in  politics,  symbols  are  precious  because  they  con- 
vey a  wealth  of  meaning  in  compact  form.    Despite 


REWARDS  AND  GOALS  163 

their  convenience  they  are  quite  arbitrary  and  ridicu- 
lous to  those  who  do  not  grasp  them.  So  are  the  rules 
of  a  game,  which  limit  the  players*  freedom  and  unite 
them  despite  their  rivalry.  These  rules  are  as  arbitrary 
as  the  designs  on  currency,  and  incapable,  like  currency, 
of  giving  us  an  immediate  reward  or  tangible  utility. 
"Hang  the  rules,**  we  are  all  of  us  prone  to  say  when 
they  balk  us  of  victory.  Shall  a  few  sentences,  perhaps 
not  even  printed  but  only  handed  down  by  tradition, 
—  shall  these  bodiless  ideas  stand  in  the  way  of  our 
getting  what  we  hotly  want?  Yes,  they  shall  do  just 
that,  and  we  shall  learn  to  submit  to  them  as  we  submit 
to  greater  laws,  national,  moral,  and  divine.  For  every 
business  man  is  tempted  to  **  hang  the  rules  "  when  they 
interfere  with  his  profits,  and  every  one  of  us  longs  to 
hang  the  moral  law  when  it  interferes  with  what  we 
want  to  do. 

Respect  for  vital  but  intangible  meaning  behind  a 
reasonable  law,  which  baffles  or  defeats  our  will,  is  a 
training  in  the  use  of  great  symbols  and  so  in  the  exer- 
cise of  spiritual  muscles.  Respect  for  the  same  law 
when  it  brings  us  profit  and  success,  means  triumph  in 
a  yet  more  searching  test,  and  exercises  another  set  of 
spiritual  muscles. 

Our  moments  of  success  or  of  defeat  are  not  merely 
what  they  seem  on  the  face  of  them.  They  stand  as 
symbolic  representatives  of  what  the  law  and  the  in- 
visible powers  of  the  world  have  put  up  to  us.  They 
are  interpreted  like  words  or  coins  by  remembering 


i64  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

what  stands  behind  them,  out  of  sight.  For  In  success 
we  recognize  (or  ought  to)  that  without  the  protection 
of  the  law  we  should  not  have  won.  Chance  or  the  crude 
strength  of  those  opposed  to  us  would  have  rolled  us 
in  the  dust  but  for  the  law.  In  almost  every  sport 
there  are  moments  when  it  is  only  by  the  rules  that 
our  opponents  are  prevented  from  running  away  with 
the  game.  In  some  of  our  great  cities  there  are  crimi- 
nal gangs  which,  but  for  the  law  and  its  enforcement, 
would  break  over  us  like  a  tidal  wave.  It  is  not  by 
our  own  personal  merits,  but  by  the  force  of  law  and 
by  the  help  of  our  fellows  that  we  win  free  space  for 
happiness  and  creation.  Elemental  nature,  too,  is  kept 
at  bay,  not  by  what  you  and  I  do,  but  by  the  police 
protection  of  science  which  keeps  us  safe  because  we 
obey  the  laws  of  that  great  game. 

Play,  then,  is  consecrated  by  its  symbolism  and  the 
ideals  of  good  sport  which  it  embodies.  But  the  es- 
sence of  good  sport,  —  obedience  to  rules,  ability  to  be 
a  modest  winner  and  cheerful  loser,  —  is  also  the  es- 
sence of  self-government,  good  service,  and  spiritual 
growth. 


PART  III:  LOVB 


CHAPTER  XX 


THE  ALLIES  OF  LOVE 


It  seems  hardly  decent  to  discuss  so  sacred  a  matter 
in  the  publicity  of  print.  Dimly  aware  of  this,  we 
try  to  approach  the  subject  delicately  through  such 
phrases  as  "The  Spirit  of  Youth"  (Jane  Addams)  or 
"The  Life  Force"  (G.  Bernard  Shaw  in  "Man  and 
Superman").  To  free  the  word  "love"  from  its  asso- 
ciation with  boudoirs  and  morbid  novels,  we  try  to 
identify  it  with  something  genial  and  all-pervasive,  to 
ally  it  with  the  great,  sane  forces  of  nature.  For  we 
believe  that  if  these  allies  stimulate  and  reinforce  per- 
sonality, if  they  awaken  and  intensify  our  feeble  ener- 
gies, then  they  tend  to  ennoble  our  affections. 

Elemental  nature  is  one  such  ally.  A  group  of  people 
who  start  on  a  camping  trip  tolerably  indifferent  to 
each  other,  will  usually  come  home  bubbling  over  with 
friendliness.  There  may  have  been  very  little  talking 
during  the  entire  trip.  What  has  drawn  them  together? 
Is  it  not  the  close  contact  with  elemental  conditions 
in  paddling,  carrying,  cooking,  and  sleeping  by  the 
camp-fire?  To  share  fatigue,  disappointment,  surprise, 
hunger,  and  good  appetite,  gives  people  a  common 
life.   Facing  nature  they  join  hands,  reinvigorated. 

Friends  who  went  through  the  horrors  of  the  San 


i68  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Francisco  earthquake  in  1906,  and  kept  their  spiritual 
senses  alert,  tell  me  that  their  most  poignant  experience 
was  not  one  of  horror  or  of  pity,  but  of  the  almost 
miraculous  attainment  of  human  brotherhood.  Dur- 
ing the  days  just  after  the  disaster,  when  rich  and  poor 
waited  in  line  together  for  their  allowance  of  bread  and 
milk,  "I  saw,"  says  a  friend,  "a  rich  woman  from  the 
St.  Francis  Hotel  lying  asleep  on  a  doorstep  with  her 
head  on  a  muff.  A  long  sable  coat  was  thrown  over 
her  and  under  one  corner  of  it  a  young  Japanese  boy 
was  curled  up  asleep.  .  .  .  Everybody  was  everybody's 
friend,  and  though  we  were  all  dog-tired,  there  was  not 
a  word  of  complaint  or  ill-nature."  To  bivouac  together 
in  the  park  and  take  care  of  each  other's  babies  around 
fires  of  driftwood  gathered  from  the  beach,  made  men 
and  women  once  more  defenseless  children  of  the  earth, 
revealed  each  to  each  in  their  innate  and  genuine  love- 
ableness.  Common  danger  and  mutual  helpfulness, 
common  misfortune,  common  work,  common  confront- 
ation with  the  elemental,  brought  a  swift  achievement 
of  almost  ideal  brotherhood.  A  crushing  blow  made 
all  the  world  for  a  time  kin. 

Within  a  few  weeks,  it  is  true,  the  San  Franciscans 
forgot  this  beneficent  revelation  and  slid  back  into  their 
old  animosities.  Any  other  set  of  people  would  have 
done  likewise.  But  even  that  pitiful  relapse  serves  to 
make  my  present  point  the  clearer.  Affection,  this  time 
in  the  form  of  comradeship,  was  for  a  day  reinforced, 
almost  consecrated,  by  contact  with  hostile  nature; 


THE  ALLIES  OF  LOVE  169 

then  lost  its  sacredness  again,  when  the  bond  of  con- 
tact was  broken  and  "civilization**  once  more  got  the 
upper  hand. 

In  hospital  work  patients,  doctors,  and  nurses,  who 
face  terror  and  disease  together,  are  often  knit  into 
comradeship,  like  soldiers  on  a  campaign.  The  *'new 
patient"  just  entering  a  hospital  is  often  forlorn  and 
terror-stricken  as  a  child  lost  in  a  forest  or  landed 
friendless  in  a  strange  country.  The  menace  of  illness, 
the  hospital's  dark  and  fearful  suggestions,  its  sights 
and  sounds  and  smells,  make  him  hunger  for  friendly 
guidance.  Hence  it  is  marvelously  easy  to  serve  him  as 
a  friend  in  need.  Through  the  simplest  physical  help- 
fulness or  decent  sympathy,  one  gains  a  foothold  in 
friendship  which  could  not  be  won  in  months  of  acquain- 
tance outside  of  the  hospital.  Why?  Because  disaster 
and  sickness  renew  our  instinctive  alliance  with  any 
human  being  against  the  assaults  of  the  non-human 
world. 

I  have  been  speaking  so  far  of  strangers  made  friendly 
by  working  together  against  elemental  nature.  But 
nature  can  bring  new  strength  not  only  to  the  most 
general  and  vague  affections,  but  to  all  affections, 
even  to  the  most  sacred  of  human  ties.  On  one  of  our 
rare  country  outings  last  spring,  my  wife  and  I  wandered 
away  from  the  violets  and  the  apple  blossoms  and  came 
all  at  once  upon  a  place  where  the  grass  was  afire. 
Some  stumps  and  one  small  cedar  were  also  burning. 
It  was  a  bit  of  country  precious  to  us  both ;  so  as  soon 


I70  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

as  we  had  explored  a  little  and  mapped  out  our  task,  we 
started  to  choke  out  the  remnants  of  the  fire. 

Some  parts  we  could  beat  out  with  a  stick,  others  we 
smothered  with  damp  earth.  Before  long  each  of  us  was 
possessed  by  that  passion  of  accomplishment  which  so 
often  carries  one  far  beyond  the  original  plan.  We  quite 
forgot  each  other,  and  when  at  last  I  straightened  up 
and  looked  over  the  stump  which  I  had  been  pounding, 
I  could  just  see  my  wife  far  off  on  the  brow  of  a  hill. 
Her  back  was  towards  me,  but  I  could  see  that  she  was 
stamping  and  beating  out  the  patches  of  smouldering 
fire,  quite  as  engrossed  in  her  work  as  I  had  been  in 
mine.  When  I  joined  her,  her  shoes  were  white  with 
dust.  There  were  flakes  of  ashes  on  her  black  hair. 
Her  skirt  was  pinned  up,  and  she  was  on  the  warpath, 
so  intent  on  her  task  that  when  she  raised  her  head 
her  eyes  scanned  me  for  an  instant  almost  as  if  I  had 
been  a  stranger.  But  what  I  felt  most  vividly  was  that 
we  had  both  been  down  into  a  bath  in  the  elemental  — 
"the  healthy  underworld  where  things  slumber  and 
grow,'*  —  and  that  in  our  very  forgetfulness  of  each 
other,  our  love  had  taken  up  into  itself  some  of  the 
sweetness  and  patience  of  the  earth. 

We  are  apt  to  think  that  our  contact  with  nature,  in 
work  or  play,  is  good  chiefly  because  it  benefits  our 
health  or  increases  our  knowledge.  But  I  think  we 
should  remember  and  cultivate  nature's  beneficent  in- 
fluence upon  our  affections.  On  them,  as  well  as  on  our 
muscles,  nature  bestows  new  spring,  tone,  and  control. 


THE  ALLIES  OF  LOVE  171 

Art  no  less  than  nature  can  enrich  and  reinforce  the 
springs  of  our  affection.  How  warmly  we  sometimes 
feel  toward  those  with  whom  we  have  just  sung  a  stirring 
chorus  or  a  noble  hymn !  Have  not  all  of  us  come  away 
from  some  deeply  moving  music,  aware  of  something 
curiously  familiar  and  endearing  in  those  previously 
indifferent  to  us?  Any  lover  of  Wagner  will  recall, 
for  instance,  the  wonderful  passage  in  the  second  act 
of  "Lohengrin,*'  after  the  marriage  of  the  hero  and 
heroine.  Their  love  for  each  other  rises  to  a  higher 
power  when  Lohengrin  goes  to  the  window  and  throws 
it  open.  A  flood  of  spring  moonlight  and  spring  fra- 
grance pours  in.  Permeated  by  the  beauty  of  the 
night,  spring's  creative  forces  in  their  veins,  they  are 
more  deeply  united  to  each  other,  and  every  spectator 
who  has  ears  to  hear  is  also  united  more  sacredly  with 
whosoever  is  dear  to  him. 

We  must  agree  with  Tolstoy  that  lawless  art  stirs  up 
lawless  love.  On  the  other  hand,  to  read  of  Stevenson's 
affection  for  Walter  Ferrier  ^  or  Dante's  exalted  pas- 
sion for  Beatrice,  surely  increases  our  capacity  for  the 
nobler  types  of  love;  for  to  appreciate  is  always  in 
some  measure  to  appropriate. 

Each  of  love's  neighbors  contributes  something  pre- 
cious towards  the  richness  of  its  chords.  Nature  gives 
them  a  new  timbre,  art  adds  an  ampler  vibration.  Play- 
fulness, patriotism,  loyalty  to  truth  and  to  honor  but- 
*  As  suggested  in  the  essay  called  "Old  Mortality." 


172  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

tress  and  strengthen  them  like  contrapuntal  melodies. 
Like  a  symphony  without  its  mischievous  scherzo, 
love  is  maimed  and  darkened  if  it  cannot  express  it- 
self in  "jest  and  sport  and  quip  and  crank.*'  We  laugh 
for  love  as  well  as  for  joy  or  triumph,  and  smiles  carry 
the  messages  of  affection  as  often  as  those  of  fun. 

By  nature  and  art,  by  playfulness,  patriotism,  truth- 
fulness, and  all  the  greatest  forces  in  our  nature,  love 
is  penetrated,  nourished,  and  supported.  I  marvel 
sometimes  when  I  see  two  people  marry,  and  then  try 
to  feed  their  love  simply  on  each  other.  It  is  incon- 
ceivable that  any  love  can  live  and  grow  unless  it  draws 
sustenance,  as  every  soul  and  body  must,  from  the 
world  around  us,  from  work,  from  play,  and  from  all 
the  higher  loyalties  that  we  serve. 

Another  ally  of  love  comes  to  light  when  we  answer 
the  question:  Should  one  ever  force  or  impersonate 
affection?  Surely  not,  yet  love,  like  a  musical  ear,  can 
be  cultivated  to  some  extent  through  knowledge. 
There  must  be  something  to  build  on,  some  basis  of 
respect,  or  at  least  of  compassion.  But  given  that, 
we  may  confidently  call  to  our  aid  that  great  master- 
builder  of  affection,  knowledge.  If  we  give  a  man  every 
chance,  he  is  almost  sure  to  disclose  some  lovable 
quality.  Knowledge  joined  with  faith  is  the  way  to 
give  him  these  chances.  For  example,  you  know 
people  better  in  their  own  homes;  you  have  there  a 
promising  opportunity  to  catch  a  liking  for  them. 
You  find  out  some  people's  strength  by  seeing  them 


THE  ALLIES  OF  LOVE  173 

at  play,  others'  by  learning  the  structure  and  history 
of  their  past,  others'  by  watching  them  as  they  build 
up  plans  for  the  future. 

Of  course  such  fuller  acquaintance  may  reveal  not 
strength  but  weakness;  we  may  be  repelled  where  we 
hoped  to  be  attracted  through  close  intimacy.  Yet  there 
is  no  other  path.  We  are  taking  the  only  chance,  and 
if  we  persevere  there  are  few  personalities  so  repellent 
as  to  foil  us  altogether.  I  speak  with  confidence  upon 
this  point  because  some  of  the  strongest  and  most  in- 
spiring friendships  that  I  have  known  were  raised  from 
very  near  the  zero  point  of  attraction  to  the  pleasantest 
warmth  simply  by  taking  every  opportunity  for  better 
knowledge,  and  by  hunting  for  favorable  points  of 
view.  The  afifection  which  gradually  developed  was 
from  the  first  genuine  and  unforced,  but  it  would  never 
have  come  to  anything  had  it  not  been  cultivated  and 
reinforced  through  every  available  avenue  of  knowl- 
edge. And  after  all,  is  it  not  quite  natural  that  human 
affection  should  come  to  us,  in  part  at  least,  through 
intimacy  of  acquaintance?  One  gets  fond  of  many 
a  city,  many  a  landscape,  many  an  art  or  science  in 
just  the  same  way,  and  most  of  our  antipathies  — 
though  not  all  —  are  to  be  explained  like  Charles 
Lamb's  by  our  ignorance. 

A  friend  said  to  Lamb:  ^'Come  here.  I  want  to  in- 
troduce you  to  Mr.  A." 

Lamb  replied  with  his  characteristic  stammer  and 
drawl:  "No,  thank  you." 


174  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

''Why  not?" 

**  Don't  like  him?   But  you  don't  know  him!" 

"That's  the  reason  I  don't  like  him." 

I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  we  can  often  win  a 
friend  merely  by  scraping  together  a  fund  of  knowledge 
about  him.  I  mean  that  if  you  are  once  convinced  that 
you  ought  to  conquer  a  certain  dislike  or  acquire  a  cer- 
tain friendliness,  knowledge  is  one  way  to  go  at  it. 

The  influence  of  elemental  nature,  of  knowledge, 
beauty,  playfulness,  patriotism,  truth-seeking, — all  the 
reinforcements  which  I  have  been  describing,  are  for  the 
most  part  a  consecration  of  love,  often  a  blessing,  rarely 
a  curse.  For  most  of  the  perversions  and  diseases  of 
love,  which  are  just  now  so  much  in  the  public  mind 
under  the  false  title  of  "sex,"  are  due,  as  I  believe,  less 
to  an  excess  than  to  a  deficiency  of  vitality,  —  less  to 
lack  of  control  than  to  lack  of  depth. 

But  not  all !  Swift-running  streams  drop  out  some 
impurities,  but  there  are  intrinsic  qualities  in  the  chem- 
istry of  the  water-borne  molecules  which  cannot  be 
changed  from  bad  to  good  by  any  increase  of  power  in 
the  stream  which  surrounds  them.  We  want  a  swift- 
flowing  stream  but  the  internal  structure  of  the  water 
—  its  chemistry  —  must  also  be  right,  else  the  water 
is  bad.  Love  also  may  still  remain  a  vague,  impersonal 
life-force  unless  its  internal  structure  is  right.  That 
structure  is  my  next  topic. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

LOVE'S  HOUSE  OF  MANY  MANSIONS 

In  a  happy  marriage  the  wife's  affection  for  her  hus- 
band is  often  maternal  as  well  as  conjugal.  She  treats 
him  like  a  grown-up  son,  looks  after  him  and  mothers 
him  like  one  of  her  own  boys.  We  all  know  this  habit 
and  love  it.  We  should  recognize  that  something  was 
missing  if  there  were  nothing  but  the  maternal  in  a  wife's 
attitude.  But  we  should  also  recognize  something  miss- 
ing if  there  were  nothing  but  the  conjugal.  Moreover 
the  pair  should  be  good  comrades  as  well  as  husband- 
and-wife  and  mother-and-son.  Together  these  three  af- 
fections make  a  richer  love  than  any  one  of  them  alone. 

The  filial  and  maternal  may  also  be  united  in  a  single 
relation.  I  knew  a  little  girl  of  ten,  devotedly  attached 
to  her  mother  and  fond  of  sleeping  near  her  on  the 
porch  of  their  house.  One  night  a  storm  blew  in ;  the 
mother  was  awakened  not  by  the  storm,  but  by  the 
touches  and  whispered  words  of  her  little  daughter 
who  was  at  her  bedside  covering  her  with  a  rainproof 
blanket,  and  (as  soon  as  she  saw  that  her  mother  had 
waked)  pouring  out  a  stream  of  such  endearments  as 
a  mother  uses  to  her  child.  She  was  mothering  her 
own  mother;  yet  the  next  morning  she  was  as  much 
her  mother's  child  as  any  one  could  wish. 

Extend  to  their  limit  the  possibilities  suggested  in 


176  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

these  examples :  then  all  possible  human  affections  are 
united  in  the  richness  of  a  single  love.  I  have  a  brother 
who  is  good  enough  to  make  his  home  with  me  and  to 
share  with  me  the  privilege  of  affectionate  intimacy 
with  his  children.  As  I  read  or  play  with  his  eight-year- 
old  daughter  I  find  in  my  love  for  her,  elements  of 
every  type  of  affection  that  I  can  conceive.  The  touch 
of  her  hand  thrills  me.  I  am  equally  conscious  of  the 
impulse  to  protect  and  guide  her,  to  fight  for  her,  to 
foresee  and  prevent  the  dangers  that  will  meet  her  at 
play  and  in  school,  —  in  short,  to  be  a  father  to  her. 
I  also  want  her  comradeship;  I  want  to  work  and  to 
play  with  her  as  an  equal  and  not  merely  as  a  hopeless 
"grown-up."  And  when  I  see  how  much  clearer  than 
mine  is  her  sight  for  the  new,  how  much  fresher  her 
enthusiasm,  how  much  more  beauty  of  speech,  gesture, 
and  mood  her  life  contains  than  mine,  how  much  more 
wisdom  there  is  in  her  unconsciousness  than  in  most 
of  my  thinking,  I  look  up  to  her  with  veneration. 
Around  and  beyond  all  this  I  see  that  she  belongs  to 
the  larger  life  of  the  world  and  to  that  Personality 
which  envelops  us  all. 

If  I  am  right  in  the  interpretation  of  these  exam- 
ples, we  must  learn  to  think  of  personal  love  not  so 
much  as  a  single  quality  or  impulse,  but  as  a  house  of 
many  rooms.  Each  room  represents  some  type  of 
affection,  —  conjugal,  paternal,  filial,  or  friendly.  Each 
room  opens  into  those  next  it,  so  that  an  impulse 
originating  in  one  must  pass  freely  through  all.  More- 


LOVE'S  HOUSE  OF  MANY  MANSIONS    177 

fver,  the  house  is  open  outwardly.  Through  its  win- 
dows there  is  a  perpetual  give-and-take  between  our 
affections  and  the  infinite  love  of  God.  The  currents 
of  infinite  love  as  they  sweep  through  the  universe 
rush  through  all  the  chambers  of  love's  house,  giving 
to  all,  receiving  from  each,  mingling  them  with  each 
other  and  with  the  divine. 

What  are  the  practical  results?  If  each  member  of 
the  family  of  affections  possess  some  traits  of  each  of 
the  others,  then  each  is  enriched  without  surrendering 
its  central  characteristics.  We  find,  then,  in  each  affec- 
tion a  structure  something  like  the  present  elective 
system  at  Harvard  and  at  Yale,  where  each  student 
must  so  choose  his  courses  that  he  studies  a  great  deal 
of  one  branch  and  a  little  of  all  the  other  main  branches 
of  knowledge.  His  scholarship  is  mainly  of  one  type, 
but  includes  a  dash  of  the  other  types  for  better  sym- 
pathy with  their  aims.  So  a  father  will  be  mainly  a 
father  to  his  son,  but  will  also  be  something  of  a  com- 
rade and  a  brother  to  him,  and  will  even  look  up  to 
him  in  some  respects  as  he  would  to  a  father. 

A  physical  element  should  enter  into  all  affection. 
Even  to  clasp  hands  should  always  be  a  pleasure.  But  if 
we  feel  no  physical  attraction  for  a  person,  the  contact 
of  hands  is  boresome  or  distasteful.  In  exuberant  and 
affectionate  families,  especially  Europeans,  it  is  natural 
for  men  to  kiss  men  now  and  then,  as  women  so  gener- 
ally kiss  women.  This  is  the  normal.  When  those  of  the 
same  sex  fall  in  love  with  each  other,  it  means  simply 


178  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

an  exaggeration  of  the  normal  physical  attraction  which 
should  play  a  part  in  all  human  relationships.  This  is 
no  more  shocking  than  masculinity  in  women,  effemi- 
nacy or  "old-womanishness"  in  men.  The  child  pre- 
maturely old,  the  tomboy,  the  "sissy"  have  each  of 
them  too  large  a  share  of  sympathy  with  types  other 
than  their  own.  But  some  such  sympathy  there  ought 
to  be  as  a  basis  for  affection  and  mutual  understand- 
ing. Why  should  a  man  be  all  strength  and  no  ten- 
derness, or  a  woman  all  tenderness  and  no  strength? 
Why  should  we  not  preserve  as  we  grow  up  some  of 
the  child's  playfulness,  some  of  the  boy's  independence, 
and  the  girl's  swift  intuition? 

As  character  is  the  richer  for  a  mixture  of  many  sym- 
pathies and  interests  under  control  of  a  single  purpose, 
so  I  think  love  is  ennobled  when  all  types  of  affection 
are  united  within  it,  under  the  leadership  of  one.  A 
mother's  love  for  her  son  becomes  too  clinging  and 
sentimental  if  she  is  only  his  mother  and  not  also  his 
comrade.  As  conarades  respect  each  other,  every 
mother  must  learn  to  respect  something  in  her  son, 
and  to  recognize  somewhere  in  their  relation  his  au- 
thority over  her  as  well  as  hers  over  him.  He  will 
come  to  treat  her  paternally  as  he  grows  up.  Very 
early  in  boyhood  he  will  have  the  instinct  to  protect 
her  if  she  recognizes  and  responds  to  it. 

When  a  man  is  tempted  to  be  base  in  his  treatment 
of  a  woman,  one  can  sometimes  appeal  to  him  with  suc- 
cess in  the  name  of  her  weakness.  Because  she  is  weak 


LOVE'S  HOUSE  OF  MANY  MANSIONS    179 

she  needs  his  brotherly  or  fatherly  protection;  his 
guidance,  not  his  pursuit.  He  would  not  treat  his  own 
sister  so;  but  she  is  in  part  his  sister,  because  he  has  in 
him  at  least  the  germ  of  brotherly  love  for  her. 

All  the  unworthy  or  unhappy  affections  that  I  know 
of  could  be  set  right,  I  believe,  by  a  greater  infusion 
of  some  other  type  of  affection.  By  the  appeal  to 
chivalry  we  can  call  out  a  romantic  element  latent  in 
most  men's  love  for  women  just  as  we  call  on  a  boy  to 
'*  be  a  man  "  when  he  is  babyish.  He  is  not  a  man,  but 
there  are  germs  of  manliness  in  him  and  to  these  we 
appeal. 

So  far,  I  have  been  maintaining  that  love  is  true 
and  right  when  all  its  varieties  (physical,  paternal  or 
maternal  feeling,  filial  respect,  comradeship,  and  the 
rest)  are  duly  mingled  with  each  other  or  open  into 
each  other  like  the  rooms  of  a  house.  Disasters  here 
threaten  us  when  we  shut  the  outer  doors  and  win- 
dows of  our  affection,  shutting  out  the  love  of  truth, 
the  love  of  country,  of  art,  of  nature,  and  of  God. 

Jealousy  is  a  consumption  bred  within  the  structured 
house  of  love  when  all  its  windows  are  sealed.  When  we 
arc  jealous  we  try  to  shut  ourselves  up  in  shadowed 
privacy  or  timid  miserliness.  We  want  someone  all 
to  ourselves ;  we  fear  that  if  we  open  the  doors  and  let  in 
the  currents  of  others*  affection  or  the  winds  of  imper- 
sonal interest,  our  own  share  of  love  may  be  swept 
away.   A  woman  may  be  jealous  not  only  of  her  hus- 


i8o  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

band's  friends  but  of  his  work,  and  even  of  his  religion. 
This  means  that  she  has  kept  her  windows  closed  and 
shuttered,  so  that  she  looks  always  at  the  walls  of 
her  house  of  love,  never  through  and  beyond  them. 

Personal  love  is  enhanced  and  purified  by  the  con- 
tact with  elemental  nature,  by  the  inspiration  of  art, 
play,  truth-seeking,  or  patriotism.  Floating  in  through 
the  windows  of  love's  house,  these  interests  sweep  out 
impurities  and  cleanse  the  air  in  stagnant  corners. 
They  may  be  imperious  and  insistent,  but  unless  they 
are  allowed  to  break  down  the  partitions  and  monop- 
olize the  whole  house,  they  leave  it  brighter  and 
richer,  never  dimmer  or  poorer.  They  kill  nothing  but 
the  germs  of  disease.  Yet,  if  we  are  to  persuade  a  con- 
servative and  timid  love  to  open  its  windows,  we  must 
first  convince  it  that  a  friendly  and  beneficent  Spirit  is 
always  touching  our  spirits  as  the  infinite  space  touches 
our  bodies,  a  Spirit  which  pursues  us  like  the  "Hound 
of  Heaven."^ 

A  vague  and  traditional  awareness  of  this  infinite 
spirit  is  preserved  in  the  familiar  idea  of  the  "divine 
spark"  within  every  man.  But  we  know  a  great  deal 
more  about  this  divinity  than  our  ordinary  habits 
betray. 

*   In  Francis  Thompson's  poem. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

OUR  AWARENESS  OF  INFINITE  LOVE 

A  COLLEGE  friend  of  mine,  devotedly  fond  of  his  friends, 
was  also  devoted  to  his  diary.  On  a  certain  page  of  this 
he  inscribed  their  names  and  arranged  them  in  the 
order  of  his  preference.  Here  he  listed  his  (i)  best 
friend;  (2)  next  best;  (3)  third  best,  etc.,  though  he 
reserved  the  right  to  shift  this  order  now  and  then.  He 
thought  this  an  admirably  clear  arrangement,  and 
was  much  surprised  when  he  found  that  all  to  whom 
he  confided  his  list  were  moved  straightway  to  inex- 
tinguishable laughter! 

But  why  this  joyful  noise  over  my  friend 's  pet  scheme  ? 
Why  do  we  look  with  mingled  pity  and  amusement  at 
that  diary  and  at  all  attempts  to  arrange  our  friends  in 
an  order  of  preference?  Order,  we  are  told,  is  Heaven's 
first  law,  and  certainly  everything  under  the  sun  can 
(and  sometimes  ought  to  be)  put  in  order  and  arranged 
in  just  such  a  hierarchy  as  we  indignantly  reject  when 
applied  to  our  friends.  I  believe  that  you  will  find  it 
true  that  all  finite  facts  can  be  arranged  in  a  series  and 
sometimes  should  be  so  arranged.  The  population  of 
cities,  the  prices  of  pictures,  the  weights  of  children, 
the  chemical  ingredients  of  foods,  the  magnitude  of 
the  stars, — one  could  go  on  indefinitely  with  the  cata- 


i82  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

logue  of  finite  things  which  can  be  reduced  to  a  com- 
mon denominator  and  arranged  in  a  row,  often  with 
profit.  But  you  run  against  a  snag  the  instant  you  be- 
gin to  deal  with  things  or  thoughts  which  are  infinite. 
Try  to  answer,  or  even  seriously  to  ask  the  question, 
**  Which  is  longer,  past  time  or  future  time?"  and  you 
attempt  the  absurd.  Try  to  state  which  is  longer,  the 
distance  which  you  might  travel  through  the  space 
to  your  right  or  that  which  you  might  go  to  your  left, 
and  how  either  of  these  compares  with  the  distances 
which  you  might  go  in  any  one  of  the  infinite  num- 
ber of  other  directions.  You  are  involved  at  once  in 
absurdity.^ 

The  same  absurdity  results  when  you  attempt  to 
rank  your  friends.  They  cannot  be  arranged  in  a  row 
and  numbered  as  first,  second,  and  third  because  each 
of  them  is  infinitely  lovable,  infinitely  valuable  in  his 
own  unique  service  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  No  good 
mother  will  admit  that  she  loves  one  of  her  children 
more  than  another.  She  loves  each  with  all  her  strength. 
There  Is  no  limit  to  her  power  of  loving  each  of  them, 
no  limit  to  the  amount  of  loveliness  which  she  can  find 
in  each.  With  scrupulous  and  sacred  sincerity  she  can 
write  to  each  of  her  children  a  letter  beginning  "My 
Dearest." 

What  does  this  prove?  It  seems  to  me  to  show  that 
our  love  is  traversed  by  the  current  of  an  infinite  af- 

*  I  know  that  some  infinites  are  greater  than  others;  but  I  see  no  such 
difference  in  the  size  of  the  particular  infinites  which  we  call  persons. 


OUR  AWARENESS  OF  INFINITE  LOVE    183 

fection  which  sweeps  through  us  and  off  to  whomever 
we  love,  —  a  current  which  cannot  be  compared  with 
any  other,  because  it  is  an  infinite  love,  and  if  infinite, 
divine. 

Another  familiar  example  may  make  this  idea  more 
credible.  *'  How  often  shall  I  forgive  my  brother?  Unto 
seven  times?"  Christ's  answer:  "Yea,  I  say  unto  you 
unto  seventy  times  seven,"  does  not  mean  four  hundred 
and  ninety.  One  limit  is  just  as  vicious  as  another. 
Christ  meant  that  our  forgiveness  of  any  one  whom  we 
love  is  infinite,  —  that  in  true  love  there  is  literally 
no  end  to  forgiveness  so  long  as  it  means  not  condoning 
or  forgetting,  but  the  ampler  understanding  which  is 
pardon. 

Not  all  forgiveness  can  be  thus  infinite.  Forgiveness 
must  be  definitely  limited,  for  example,  in  the  official 
relation  of  employer  and  employee.  There  is  an  end 
to  the  number  of  mistakes  which  an  employer  can 
rightly  forgive  in  an  employee.  But  it  makes  all  the 
difference  to  that  employee  if,  when  he  comes  to  lose 
his  job,  he  sees  that,  though  as  an  employee  he  cannot 
be  further  forgiven,  as  a  friend  he  still  holds  his  place. 
I  remember  that  to  my  mother,  after  fifteen  years  of 
service  on  a  school  committee,  was  assigned  the  task  of 
telling  superannuated  teachers  that  it  was  time  for 
them  to  go.  Why  this  was  always  my  mother*s  job 
is  clear  enough,  I  think,  when  I  say  that  many  of  these 
poor  teachers  came  away  from  the  fateful  interview 
loving  my  mother  as  a  friend.    They  could  not  help 


i84  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

seeing  that,  although  in  her  official  capacity  forgive- 
ness must  be  limited,  she  never  forgot  the  warmer  and 
more  human  tie,  limited  by  no  official  duties. 

We  can  make  it  hard  for  the  gigantic  forces  about  us 
to  do  their  proper  work  within  us.  We  can  plaster  up 
all  the  chinks  of  our  nature  for  a  time,  but  we  cannot 
long  escape  the  "majestic  instancy"  of  God.  I  believe 
that  the  idea  of  a  structural  continuity  of  human  and 
divine  love  was  contained  as  a  part  in  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  words:  "For  I  was  an  hungered,  and  ye  gave 
me  meat:  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  drink:  I  was 
a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in:  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
me :  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me :  I  was  in  prison,  and 
ye  came  unto  me. 

"Then  shall  the"  (literal-minded)  "righteous  answer 
him,  saying.  Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered,  and 
fed  thee?  or  athirst,  and  gave  thee  drink?  and  when 
saw  we  thee  a  stranger  and  took  thee  in?  or  naked,  and 
clothed  thee?  And  when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison, 
and  came  unto  thee? 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto 
one  of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it 
unto  me." 

Christ's  word  "inasmuch"  implies  the  sort  of  con- 
tinuity which  we  know  in  physics.  As  I  write  I  am  press- 
ing (not  merely  leaning)  with  an  appreciable  weight 
on  my  table.  But  inasmuch,  or  just  as  much,  as  I  press 
on  this  table,  I  press  upon  the  whole  earth.   Precisely 


OUR  AWARENESS  OF  INFINITE  LOVE    185 

as  much  power  as  I  exert  at  this  point  is  transmitted 
to  the  entire  globe  because  of  the  continuity  of  matter 
and  the  indestructibility  of  energy.  Inasmuch  as  I 
do  anything  to  this  table  I  do  it  to  all  that  is  in  continu- 
ity with  this  table.  Inasmuch  as  I  vote  and  influence 
others  to  vote  right,  I  influence  the  whole  country,  be- 
cause my  vote  and  my  influence  are  part  of  a  practi- 
cally continuous  spiritual  whole. 

Because  Christ  is  in  a  relation  of  spiritual  continuity 
with  **  the  least  of  these"  and  with  each  of  us  who  feeds 
him  or  gives  him  drink,  all  the  good  will  which  we 
put  out  is  transmitted  to  Christ  and  to  the  Father  of 
us  all. 

I  do  not  see  how  we  can  make  sense  of  Christ's  words 
and  believe  them  true  unless  we  have,  at  least  vaguely, 
in  our  minds  the  permeable  structure  by  which  I  pic- 
ture our  love  in  its  relation  to  God,  a  structure  such 
that  love  freely  given  to  any  of  the  children  of  men  must 
at  the  same  time  pass  through  him  to  his  Maker.  Unless 
the  whole  structure  of  divine  and  human  love  is  thus 
permeable,  I  cannot  understand  how  our  human  love 
and  our  worship,  our  love  of  nature  and  of  country,  of 
work,  of  play,  and  of  God  can  mingle  and  reinforce 
each  other  as  they  do.  Furthermore,  unless  we  think 
of  our  own  personality  in  such  a  relation  to  Infinite 
Personality  as  ,1  have  hinted,  I  do  not  see  how  any 
sociable  human  being  can  bear  without  intolerable 
humiliation  the  volume  of  affection  and  gratitude  that 
is  poured  out  on  him.    In  practice  one  explains  it,  one 


i86  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

makes  it  sweet  and  sane  only  by  passing  it  on.  No 
human  being  can  support  the  full  weight  and  impact 
of  another  human  being's  love.  It  turns  to  absurd- 
ities and  blasphemies,  unless  it  can  pass  through  us 
to  God. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE 


Symbolism  is  a  late  and  meager  growth  in  many  of 
us  New  Englanders  showing  itself  considerably  more 
in  play  than  in  love  or  worship.  As  a  boy  I  saw  no 
sacredness  in  the  national  flag  nor  in  the  symbols  of 
religion.  What  others  called  "enthusiasm  about  the 
flag"  seemed  to  me  a  false  and  painful  attempt  to 
pump  up  emotions  which  could  not  spontaneously 
arise.  One  set  of  symbols,  namely,  words,  I  was  even 
then  accustomed  to  use.  Literally  a  word  is  nothing 
but  a  grunt  or  a  cough,  a  vibrating  current  of  air  in 
the  larynx,  or  a  series  of  black  marks  on  white  paper. 
Yet  by  almost  every  one  these  literal  facts  are  sym- 
bolically interpreted.  Indeed  the  force  of  this  habit  is 
so  imperious  that  when  we  wish  to  divest  ourselves  of 
it  in  reading  proof-sheets,  so  that  we  can  see  precisely 
what  the  black  scratches  are,  it  is  almost  impossible. 
In  this  field  of  symbolism,  then,  we  are  almost  all  of 
us  expert;  but  our  proficiency  is  very  limited.  Our 
own  home  or  our  own  fireside  has  usually  a  symbolic 
sacredness  and  value.  We  do  not  stare  at  its  walls  with 
cold  literalness.  We  love  them,  and  there  are  a  few 
other  symbols,  such  as  bowing,  mourning,  Christmas 
ceremonies,  patriotic  songs,  which  most  of  us  love. 


188  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Nevertheless,  the  average  American  is  stiff  and  awk- 
ward, when  he  tries  to  use  symbols.  Current  thought 
and  life  discourage  the  use  of  such  imagination  and 
penetrative  intelligence  as  symbolism  demands:  for  a 
symbol  which  does  its  work  must  awaken  us  to  the 
invisible.  If  we  love  the  flag,  it  is  not  merely  be- 
cause its  image  falls  on  the  retina,  but  because  we  see  in 
it  much  that  is  invisible.  We  see  the  history  of  our 
country  as  we  know  and  love  it,  the  beauty  which  we 
believe  is  characteristic  of  America,  the  national 
energy  and  inventiveness  of  which  we  are  proud.  In 
moments  of  enthusiasm  for  the  flag  these  hopes  and 
memories  surge  up  and  rush  across  the  surface  of  con- 
sciousness like  the  picture  in  a  cinematograph.  It  is 
because  we  see  invisible  facts  that  any  symbol  becomes 
for  us  pregnant  with  meaning. 

The  marriage  vow  Is  a  great  symbol  because  it  calls 
up  with  marvelous  swiftness  and  vividness  great  realms 
of  the  past  and  future,  moments  which  have  led  up  to 
the  consummation  of  this  union,  happiness  which  we 
look  to  In  the  future.  In  this  vow  we  call  the  future 
before  us  as  a  witness ;  * '  f or  better,  for  worse,  for  richer, 
for  poorer,  in  sickness  and  in  health."  Before  these 
invisible  witnesses  called  to  range  themselves  around 
a  man  and  woman  at  the  altar,  the  pledge  to  faithful- 
ness is  taken. 

Any  symbolic  act  or  phrase  points  beyond  itself. 
The  most  sacred  symbols  point  to  the  widest  and  most 
precious  reaches  of  invisible  life.  The  most  durable 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  189 

and  universally  solid  symbols  are  actually  part  of  the 
larger  life  which  they  call  up.  They  serve  us  not  merely 
by  chance  association,  as  a  post-box  calls  up  in  our 
mind  as  we  pass  it  the  thoughts  with  which  we  last 
posted  a  letter  there.  The  best  symbol  gives  us  a 
sample  of  what  it  symbolizes.  Being  married  is  part 
of  marriage.  Words  like  "thunder"  and  "zigzag"  por- 
tray in  miniature  what  they  symbolize.  An  autograpIT 
stands  for  its  signer:  but  not  arbitrarily,  for  something 
of  his  character  is  given  you  visibly  in  the  shape  and 
arrangement  of  his  letters.  Unless  the  symbol  is  a 
piece  of  the  reality  which  it  symbolizes,  and  recalls 
that  reality  as  a  face  recalls  a  character,  it  cannot 
serve  the  needs  of  many  persons  or  extend  its  influence 
through  the  centuries. 

There  are  symbols  that  mean  abnormality  and  weak- 
ness, not  power.  People  who  are  clumsy  in  the  use  of 
spoken  language  try  to  make  good  their  deficiencies  by 
more  or  less  grotesque  gestures,  emphases,  and  atti- 
tudes. The  symbolic  act  is  then  evidence  partly  of  in- 
eptitude. But,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man's  acts  may 
beautifully  convey  what  words  are  too  poor  to  express. 
There  are  feelings  so  elemental  yet  so  intense  that  ac- 
tion seems  to  express  them  more  naturally  than  speech. 
When  the  dead  are  borne  past  us  in  the  street,  we 
uncover  our  heads  because  that  silent  act  conveys 
our  reverence  better  than  words.  The  act  of  bowing 
can  be  a  trivial  or  ludicrous  thing,  but  those  of  us  who 
have  seen   President  Eliot  bow  as  he  presents  the 


190  WHAT   MEN  LIVE  BY 

degree  of  LL.D.  will  agree  that  only  poetry  could  ex* 
press  in  words  so  much  of  dignity  and  significance. 
What  splendid  fitness  and  fullness  of  expression  there 
may  be  in  the  act  of  kneeling,  when  soldiers  kneel 
about  the  grave  of  a  dead  comrade,  or  when  a  woman 
kneels  by  her  child's  bed ! 

The  physical  symbolism  of  affection  expresses  an- 
other deep  human  need.  The  clasp  of  two  hands  is  lit- 
erally a  physical  contact  of  two  pieces  of  human  flesh. 
Woefully  secular  and  lifeless  it  can  be  !„We-allJinow  the 
flabby,  the  dinging,  the  nervous,  the  icy  hand-grasp^ 
Yet  who  has  not  sometimes  rejoiced  in  the  grasp  of  a 
hand  that  conveys  life  and  love?  Two  souls  are  here 
united  by  a  physical  contact  that  gives  birth  to  new 
aspirations  and-new-'certakities.  Two  human  beings 
are  here  linked  hand  to  hand,  in  mutual  respect, 
mutual  trust,  and  mutual  encouragement. 

Part  of  the  richness  and  value  of  such  experiences 
comes  from  the  cloud  of  unseen  witnesses  who  cluster 
about  them.  When  I  said  good-bye  to  my  father  in  1 898, 
going  into  what  turned  out  to  be  a  ludicrously  slight 
danger  in  the  Spanish  War,  the  farewell  clasp  of  hands 
joined  me  also  to  many  memories.  I  faced  uncertain- 
ties and  possibilities  that  gave  me,  I  suppose,  the  same 
experience  that  I  should  have  had,  if  the  war  had 
proved  serious.  My  mind  traveled  back  to  the  evenings 
when  my  father  used  to  read  to  us  from  Emerson's  "  Es- 
says "  the  passages  that  meant  most  to  him,  recalled  the 
long  mornings  in  his  study  among  the  pine  woods  at 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  191 

Beverly  where  he  was  patient  with  my  struggle  to  learn 

German,  the  afternoons  by  his  side  under  a  sketching 

umbrella,  —  my  first  lessons  in  drawing.  At  partings 

such  memories  flash  through  one's  mind  and  one  sees 

as  from  a  hilltop,  in  a  single  panoramic  glance,  the  high 

points  of  the  past.    There  are  pledges,  too,  in  such  a 

hand-grasp,  unspoken  but  no  less  binding,  that  may 

reach  across  the  grave,  pledges  of  mutual  faith,  trust, 

and  backing:  "My  faith  in  your  fidelity  till  you  come 

back  to  us  " :  "  My  love  with  you  always."  The  parting 

words  of  Pandora  to  Prometheus  in  W.  V.  Moody's 

*'Fire-Bringer,"   express  incomparably  the  spirit  of 

such  a  parting,  and  of  all  parting. 

"Whither  thou  goest  I  am;  there  even  now 
I  stand  and  cry  thee  to  me." 

Because  we  thus  envisage  the  invisible  past,  the  in- 
calculable future,  somewhat  as  God  must  see  the  whole 
life  of  the  world,  the  physical  symbols  of  farewell  contain 
in  their  union  a  myriad  of  meanings,  hopes,  memo- 
ries, and  pledges  to  the  unborn.  Like  the  most  inti- 
mate physical  union  of  man  and  woman,  the  hand- 
grasp  should  set  creative  forces  working  through  us  and 
be  consecrated  in  them.  Live  and  ardent  people  always 
strike  fire  out  of  each  other  like  flint  and  steel.  Your 
best  friend  strikes  thoughts  and  deeds  out  of  you  that 
f'you  never  knew  were  in  you,  and  that  truly  were  not 
full  formed  in  you  till  your  friend  woke  them  to  life. 
^The  need  of  them,  the  whisper  of  their  coming,  was 
there,  but  it  took  both  of  you  fully  to  create  them. 


192  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

It  is  through  the  symbolism  of  the  physical  acts  such 
as  meeting,  parting,  or  waiting  upon  one  another's 
physical  wants  that  one  understands  the  deeper  signifi- 
cance of  conjugal  affection.  Many  resent  the  physical 
intimacies  of  love,  because  they  take  them  literally, 
not  symbolically;  looking  straight  at  them  instead  of 
through  them.  Nothing  can  bear  that  direct,  passive 
stare  and  retain  its  sacredness.  Viewed  In  hard  literal- 
ness  what  is  more  ludicrous  than  the  ceremony  of  rais- 
ing one's  hat  to  a  lady,  what  is  more  worthless  than  a 
dirty  greenback  ?  Yet  without  a  moment's  hesitation 
we  go  behind  the  surface  appearance  of  these  symbols. 
In  them,  matter  and  its  meaning,  body  and  spirit,  are 
fused  into  harmony  as  they  should  be,  and  as  they  are 
in  the  following  words  written  by  one  of  my  dearest 
friends  to  one  of  hers:  — 

"I  want  to  tell  you  very  boisterously  and  worship- 
fully  how  much  I  love  you.  I  also  want  not  to  tell  you 
at  all,  but  to  do  something  for  you  with  my  hands  and 
feet,  to  make  your  bed,  to  pick  lavender  pine-cones  for 
you,  to  do  something  you  would  never  know  that  I  had 
done.  For  of  the  many  ways  of  love,  one  of  the  dearest 
is  to  serve  in  silence,  to  celebrate  and  not  be  found 
out.  Mothering  is  a  great  business  on  these  lines.  The 
babies  never  guess  or  care  how  many  myriad  thoughts 
of  love  go  into  bed-making,  or  hair-brushing." 

In  this  letter  the  joy  of  giving  expression  to  love 
in  physical  service  is  mingled  with  the  exultant  aware- 
ness of  a  purifying  secrecy,  which  banishes  the  thought 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  193 

of  reward.  But  her  joy  in  the  expression  of  love  "with 
my  hands  and  feet"  is  just  now  my  special  interest, 
because  it  is  an  example  of  that  *' unity  of  soul  and 
sense"  in  love  which  symbolism  makes  possible. 

Though  soul  and  sense  belong  together,  they  have 
a  constant  tendency  to  split  apart,  in  work,  play, 
and  worship  as  well  as  in  love.  Work  splits  into  physi- 
cal drudgery  on  the  one  side  and  unpractical  scheming 
on  the  other.  Thus  we  breed  anaemic  "thinkers"  who 
accomplish  nothing,  and  submerged  laborers  who  put 
no  soul  into  their  work  because  they  get  no  freedom 
out  of  it. 

Play  and  art  are  always  in  danger  of  suffering  a  simi- 
lar schism;  music  without  expression,  pictures  that  are 
all  technique,  exemplify  the  fate  of  sense  divorced  from 
spirit  in  the  field  of  art.  When  shapeless  "Spirit"  tries 
to  live  without  body,  we  are  afflicted  by  the  perform- 
ance of  amateurs  who  neither  learn  nor  inherit  their 
art,  —  but  try  to  sing  without  breathing  and  to  draw 
without  outlines. 

In  love  the  same  split  produces,  as  we  know  so  well, 
a  blind  and  destructive  passion  which  bums  itself  out 
without  vision  of  individuality.  But  on  the  other  side 
of  the  chasm  we  find  a  corresponding  monstrosity  often 
mistaken  for  virtue,  a  sterile  and  frigid  aloofness  that 
shudders  at  loud-voiced  enthusiasm  and  is  insuscep- 
tible to  physical  charm.  It  is  as  bad  to  be  dried  up  as 
to  be  burned  up,  but  worse  still  is  to  live  in  perpetual 
winter  because  we  were  bom  withered.    Such  desola- 


194  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

tion  is  no  ground  for  blame;  like  any  other  inborn 
deformity,  it  deserves  only  our  pity.  But  it  never  de- 
serves praise  or  helps  us  to  defend  a  standard  of  noble 
love.  For  love,  like  all  that  mirrors  divinity,  must  be 
incarnate. 

The  "puritanical"  reticence  about  the  body  is  right 
enough  if  we  are  equally  reticent  about  the  disembodied 
soul,  and  refuse  to  describe  or  cultivate  either  body  or 
soul  save  in  terms  of  the  other.  We  are  often  told  that 
we  should  "teach"  the  sacredness  of  the  body.  Yes, 
but  the  body  is  most  sacred  when  most  forgotten  in 
the  absorption  of  hard  work  or  keen  sport,  in  the  en- 
thusiasm of  dancing,  painting,  singing,  oratory,  love, 
or  worship.  So  it  is  with  the  soul.  Taken  literally 
"mental  culture"  seems  to  me  as  bad  as  "physical 
culture"  wherewith  the  devilish  split  of  body  and  soul 
has  invaded  the  domain  of  education.  To  think  about 
one's  body  or  one's  soul,  to  love  with  one's  body  or 
one's  soul,  is  to  paralyze  the  best  activities  of  both. 
The  foreground  of  consciousness  should  never  be  lit- 
tered up  with  such  fragments  of  a  dismembered  self. 
We  want  to  devote  the  whole  of  ourselves  to  our  job, 
to  our  family  and  friends,to  nature,  to  play,  to  beauty, 
and  to  God. 

In  the  industrial  world  the  division  of  labor  and  the 
necessity  of  doing  one  thing  at  a  time  splits  us  up  into 
woefully  small  and  centrifugal  units.  This  we  cannot 
altogether  avoid,  but  we  must  fiercely  insist  that  each 
of  these  units  shall  be  a  fragment  of  soul  incarnatet 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  195 

never  an  arid  wisp  of  disembodied  soul  or  a  shapeless 
lump  of  flesh.  If  we  can  prevent  that  diabolic  schism 
we  shall  never  be  crushed  by  the  dead  weight  of  drudg- 
ery, or  enervated  by  fruitless  and  unchristian  attempts 
to  disembody  our  meanings  or  to  realize  them  without 
the  travail  of  incarnation. 

So  far  as  we  succeed  in  this  attempt  we  keep  sym- 
bolism alive  in  every  action.  When  we  build  our  houses 
and  sweep  our  offices,  clothe  and  feed  our  children,  we 
look  through  these  acts  to  a  deeper  significance  behind 
them.  We  do  them  in  the  name  of  the  Highest  that  we 
know, — be  it  business,  family,  nation,  or  God.  We  feel 
a  deeper  respect  for  the  material,  greater  willingness  to 
study  its  texture  and  detail,  because  we  believe  that  it 
stands  for  infinitely  more  than  appears. 

If  I  have  conveyed  anything  of  the  sacredness  of  the 
physical  expression  of  love,  it  will  now  be  obvious  why 
we  shudder  at  its  desecration.  The  greater  the  sym- 
bol the  more  horrible  is  its  perversion.  In  **The  Ring 
and  the  Book  "  Browning  makes  us  feel  the  snaky  loath- 
someness of  Guido's  crime  because  it  concealed  itself 
beneath  a  priestly  robe.  The  crime  was  terrible 
enough  in  itself,  but  far  more  revolting  because  per- 
petrated by  a  priest,  who  used  the  great  offices  of  the 
Church  for  mercenary  and  sensual  ends.  Was  not 
Judas's  kiss  of  betrayal  the  most  awful  act  in  history 
because  it  was  through  this  sacred  symbol  of  love  that 
his  treachery  was  consummated?  So  it  is  with  that 
greatest  disgrace  in  modern  civilization,  prostitution. 


196  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

It  is  not  chiefly  because  of  the  physical  miseries  that 
may  (or  may  not)  follow  in  its  train.  It  is  because  of 
the  holiness  of  that  great  physical  symbol  which  it 
drags  in  the  mire,  the  misdirection  of  a  world-force  that 
ought  to  mean  the  creation  or  re-creation  of  all  that  is 
best  in  life. 

Love  is  consecrated  not  only  by  its  purity  from  for- 
eign admixtures,  but  by  taking  up  into  itself  the  best 
life  of  elemental  nature,  knowledge,  art,  play,  patriot- 
ism, and  the  devoted  search  for  truth.  These  vivid 
spirits  permeate  love,  and  revive  it  by  the  infusion  of 
their  own  virtues.  When,  moreover,  the  whole  family  of 
human  affections  and  the  Infinite  Love  which  contains 
them  are  represented  in  each  of  the  separate  affections, 
then  each  of  them  is  consecrated  by  the  strength  and 
tenderness  of  all.  When  through  symbolism  we  "hold 
infinity  in  the  palm  of  our  hand*'  (or  our  hand-clasp) 
and  *' eternity  in  an  hour,"  we  are  at  the  altar  o/ 
consecration. 

When  we  make  a  dead  failure  of  a  living  affection, 
we  secularize  it.  Sometimes  we  begin  the  day  with  a  dis* 
aster  of  this  kind.  Our  "Good-morning"  is  as  secular 
as  a  snore.  We  come  downstairs  half  awake,  our  lipf 
so  sleepy  that  they  scarcely  move,  our  minds  still 
torpid  and  vague.  We  shuffle  into  the  breakfast-room 
and  slide  into  a  chair.  Physically,  mentally,  spiritually, 
we  have  scarcely  been  penetrated  by  personality. 
Far  within  us  its  fires  burn  at  a  point  near  to  extinctioa 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  197 

But  there  is  another  and  still  worse  element  of  secu- 
larity  in  our  greeting.  We  scarcely  notice  who  it  is  we 
greet.  The  personality  that  should  exhilarate  us  is  for 
the  time  veiled  by  familiarity.  So  often  we  have  greeted 
just  this  comrade  at  breakfast  that  to-day  the  greeting 
has  become  automatic.  The  spirit  has  gone  out  of  it. 
Were  a  stranger  at  the  table,  perhaps  we  might  be 
aroused.  A  new  personality  might  bring  us  to  our 
senses  like  a  dash  of  cold  water.  But  as  it  is,  our  dull 
eyes  merely  record  the  outlines  and  colors  of  the 
person  before  us,  like  a  savage  who  sees  only  black  and 
white  scratches  in  a  piece  of  manuscript. 

When  we  are  at  our  best,  a  flood  of  life  pours  itself 
out  in  the  simple  old  words,  "Good-morning,"  —  a 
flood  of  meaning  which  strains  to  express  itself  in  a 
thousand  ways,  but  has  to  be  content  with  verbal  sym- 
bols. Our  physical  and  vital  energies,  our  love,  our 
playfulness,  our  stores  of  gratitude  for  the  world's  past 
gifts,  all  that  is  calling  us  toward  the  future,  comes 
rushing  out  in  the  time-mellowed  greeting.  The  depths 
of  us,  the  concentrated  and  imprisoned  energy  of  our 
inmost  life  call  across  the  distance  to  the  unseen 
depths  of  our  fellow. 

'Through  the  external'  and  symbolic,  the  invisible 

depths  of  any  friend  loom  up,  not  only  in  moments  of 

enthusiasm,  but  whenever  we  are  clearly  aware  of  his 

individuality.   "Love,"  G.  B.  Shaw  somewhere  says,^ 

**i^^  gross  -exaggeration  of  the  difference  between 

*  Quoted  by  Ernest  Jones,  M.D.,  Journal  of  Abnormal  Psychology, 
19",  p.  235.  .. 


198  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

one  person  and  all  the  rest."  Translated  from  pagan 
into  Christian  terms  this  means  that  in  love  we  call 
out  to  what  is  unique  and  individual  iiiMDur^friend  and 
therefore  infinitely  different  from  all  other  beings. 
His  individuality  is  always  staring  us  in  the  face,  but 
we  wake  up  to  it  only  when  we  love  him.  Others  may 
not  see  it.  That  is  their  misfortune. 

In  our  use  of  symbols  and  in  our  effort  to  penetrate 
through  them  to  what  is  lovable,  we  must  give  every 
one  credit  for  his  own  type  of  symbol  and  his  own 
fashion  of  consecrating  it  through  affection.  The  rail- 
road magnate  gazing  at  a  mountain-side,  blasted  and 
seared  by  the  clearings  which  his  engines  have  found 
necessary,  sees  there  the  vision  and  symbol  of  the  great 
railroa^d  which  is  to  be  built.  That  is  his  child.  He  is 
blind  to  the  mere  external  effects  that  to  you  and  me 
are  secular  and  shocking,  the  scarred  and  denuded 
hillside,  the  splendid  trees  and  cliffs  torn  from  their 
places.  For  the  hopes  and  visions  of  the  future,  his 
dreams  and  plans  of  service,  center  in  this  spot.  Their 
light  illuminates  the  place  for  him.  He  sees  it  with  no 
such  alien  and  disillusioned  eyes  as  ours,  and  we  must 
put  ourselves  in  his  place,  even  though  we  may  think 
that  he  has  chosen  the  object  of  his  affection  strangely. 

We  should  be  even  more  modest  when  we  judge  the 
historic  symbols  of  the  Church.  If  we  can  take  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  an  act  of  consecra- 
tion, it  is  because  deep  calls  unto  deep.  We  bring  to  it 
our  best  store  of  thankfulness,  of  reminiscence,  and 


SYMBOLISM   IN  LOVE  199 

communion  with  the  personality  of  Christ.  Through 
the  symbolic  elements,  and  in  the  service,  we  feel  the 
light  and  heat  of  Christ's  personality  more  vividly 
than  at  other  times.  Yet  I  remember  that,  looking  on 
this  ceremony  as  a  child,  I  found  it  not  only  devoid  of 
anything  to  excite  my  reverence,  but  prone  to  drag 
me  below  my  normal  level.  Nothing  can  constrain  us 
to  symbolism.  We  may  be  bored  or  amused  or  even 
disgusted  by  it.  Nothing  can  force  us  to  find  a  thing 
sacred ;  nothing  can  remain  secular  if  we  determine  to 
make  it  sacred. 

Any  unconsecrated  affection,  any  infatuation,  jeal- 
ousy, or  nagging  habit,  any  horror  such  as  prostitu- 
tion or  careless  excess  within  marriage,  errs  through  a 
low  tone  of  personal  energy,  a  feeble,  drifting,  slavish 
attitude,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  through  an  impersonal 
gaze.  It  sees  a  thing,  a  case,  a  machine,  where  it  ought 
to  see  an  infinitely  valuable  person. 

A  symbolic  deed  of  love  is  mystical,  not  because  it 
is  vague,  but  because  of  the  richness  of  meaning  packed 
into  one  narrow  act. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


LOYALTY   IN  LOVE 


Writing  of  love  and  marriage  in  "  Virginihus  Puer- 
isgue''  Stevenson  says:  "I  hate  questioners  and  ques- 
tions. *  Is  it  still  the  same  between  us  ?  *  Why,  how  can  it 
be  ?  It  is  eternally  different  and  yet  you  are  still  the 
friend  of  my  heart.  Do  you  understand  me  ?  God  knows ; 
I  should  think  it  highly  improbable." 

Stevenson  hated  such  questions  because  he  found  it 
impossible  to  answer  them  truly.  But  I  wager  that  he 
hated  them  also  because  of  their  dearth  of  venture  and 
generosity.  Such  a  timid  questioner,  anxiously  scan- 
ning the  weather-gauge  of  affection,  finds  it  steadily 
falling  toward  zero.  Under  such  observation  no  love 
can  grow  or  flourish.  We  need  not  contribute  all  the 
warmth  without  waiting  to  be  invited,  but  surely  we 
must  contribute  some  of  it. 

I  lived  for  a  time  some  years  ago  in  a  community 
whose  members  seemed  to  me  more  tempest- tossed  and 
unhappy  than  any  human  beings  I  have  ever  known. 
They  were  so  "stupid  in  the  affections"  that  they  had 
never  learned  the  most  elementary  lesson  about  human 
relationships,  —  that  a  passive  attitude  never  works. 
Two  of  them  happened  to  notice  that  they  felt  fond 
of  each  other;  they  married.  Shortly  afterward  they 
observed  no  particular  fondness  for  each  other,  and 


LOYALTY  IN  LOVE  201 

therefore  separated.  The  winds  of  feeling  blew  them 
now  together,  now  apart.  Mated  or  severed,  they 
were  quite  helpless  and  apparently  quite  unaware 
that  they  could  do  anything  to  help  themselves  or  to 
maintain  any  single  direction  among  the  veering  cur- 
rents of  feeling. 

Probably  every  one  of  them  knew  that  if  he  con- 
sulted his  feelings  each  morning  as  to  whether  he  should 
wash  his  face  or  not,  he  would  find  the  forces  of  desire 
often  at  the  zero  point  or  on  the  negative  side  of  the 
scale.  But  being  moderns  they  probably  pay  no  atten- 
tion to  their  feelings  as  regards  so  important  a  matter 
as  cleanliness!  In  all  practical  affairs  (among  which 
the  average  American  does  not  include  affection)  we 
know  that  loyal  adherence  to  one's  original  intention, 
however  one  happens  to  feel,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
forces  that  make  for  success.  Passivity,  reliance  on  the 
moment's  whim,  literalism  in  reading  the  face  of  the 
future  or  of  the  present,  is  fatal  to  happiness  and  to 
success.  No  business  venture  and  no  human  creature 
can  bear  the  passive  stare  of  the  utterly  disengaged 
soul. 

Chesterton  reminds  us  that  if  we  face  man  with  the 
cold  and  fishy  eye  of  science,  we  cannot  overlook  the 
ludicrous  and  damning  fact  that  he  has  two  legs.  To 
see  him  waddling  over  the  ground  between  these  two 
points  of  support  is  more  than  any  one  could  bear 
with  composure  did  he  not  view  the  apparition  with 
a  gaze  tempered  by  affection,  good  nature,  and  faith. 


202  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Yet,  as  he  tells  us,  there  is  one  still  more  unforgivable 
fact  about  man  when  we  view  him  with  the  literal  eye. 
How  can  one  ever  again  view  with  favor,  still  less  with 
love,  a  being  whom  one  has  actually  caught  in  the  act 
of  making  an  opening  in  his  face  into  which  he  then 
puts  portions  of  the  outer  world? 

The  point  of  these  illustrations  is  this.  Without 
commitment,  faith,  the  power  to  distinguish  and  disre- 
gard what  is  unessential,  there  is  no  stability  in  any 
human  relation.  It  takes  but  little  experience  to  show 
us  that  no  human  being  is  merely  what  he  is  seen  to  be 
at  any  one  moment.  He  can  no  more  display  himself 
in  a  single  act  or  a  single  year  than  a  musical  theme 
can  be  expressed  in  one  of  its  notes.  A  musical  theme  is 
all  that  it  can  become  before  the  desire  which  launched 
it  is  slaked.  So  a  human  being  is  in  truth  all  that  he 
has  been  and  can  become,  not  because  he  now  embodies 
it,  but  because  that  vast  arc  is  the  only  sufficient 
explanation  of  his  behavior,  the  only  working  basis  for 
affection. 

But  this  attainable  personality  he  certainly  will  not 
attain  without  your  help.  His  fate  is  determined  in  part 
by  what  you  do  about  it,  and  the  most  important  thing 
that  you  can  do  is  to  expect  of  him  always  a  little  more 
than  you  can  see,  projecting  your  vision  toward  the 
unseen  depths  of  his  soul,  not  arbitrarily,  but  in  the 
direction  suggested  by  what  he  has  already  done. 

This  creative  act  of  loyalty  as  it  overcomes  another's 
diffidence  is  not  unlike  a  football  team  **  getting  the 


LOYALTY  IN  LOVE  203 

jump  on*'  its  opponents.  The  opposing  teams  face 
each  other  in  the  rush  line.  The  game,  pausing  after 
one  of  its  "downs,*'  is  renewed.  Each  side  tries  to  push 
the  other  backward.  But  it  is  not  chiefly  a  predom- 
inance in  weight  or  in  strength  that  determines  which 
line  shall  make  an  advance,  which  shall  yield.  It  is 
rather  a  question  of  alertness.  One  of  the  teams  will 
*'get  the  jump  on"  the  other  by  being  the  first  to  lunge 
forward.  Whoever  succeeds  in  preempting  this  initial 
ictus  takes  the  other  slightly  at  a  disadvantage  and 
puts  himself  into  a  correspondingly  stronger  position. 
The  opponent's  disadvantage  still  further  weakens  his 
opposition  and  lets  the  successful  team  advance  with 
increased  momentum. 

You  can  "get  the  jump  on"  another's  diffidence  if 
you  shoot  into  his  soul  a  message  of  welcome,  of  encour- 
agement, of  faith  in  his  power  to  do  something  better 
than  he  has  yet  done.  You  do  not  wait  for  him  to  show 
his  best.  Your  impulse  of  welcome  breaks  down  his 
reserve,  melts  his  shyness,  and  brings  him  nearer  to  the 
thing  that  you  expect  of  him.  This  is  mirrored  in  his 
face.  You  see  it,  and  your  original  faith  is  reinforced. 
You  follow  up  the  trail  of  sparks  which  you  have  spied 
within  him ;  the  spirit  and  exuberance  of  your  quest 
redoubling  in  him  the  fire  which  you  seek. 

No  one  can  set  a  limit  to  this  wonderful  give-and- 
take,  as  the  lightning  of  two  souls  leaps  back  and  forth. 
Yet  it  is  no  mystical  or  unusual  affair.  Emerson  re- 
ferred to  something  of  the  kindwhen  he  said:  "  I  have 


204  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

heard  with  admiring  submission  the  experience  of  the 
lady  who  declared  that  the  sense  of  being  well-dressed 
gives  a  feeling  of  inward  tranquillity  which  religion  is 
powerless  to  bestow ! "  ^ 

Mr.  Slack,  a  timid  citizen,  emerges  from  his  door 
unusually  well-dressed  and  thereby  "gets  the  jump 
on"  his  passing  friend  Bouncer.  The  good  impression 
made  upon  Bouncer  is  written  in  his  face  and  instantly 
makes  him  more  attractive  and  stimulating  to  Slack 
who  brightens  and  responds  by  giving  something  bet- 
ter than  his  ordinary  pale  gruel  of  talk;  a  delightful  ex- 
change is  set  in  oscillation ;  the  day  becomes  brighter 
and  the  two  march  downtown  to  business  in  a  path  of 
glory. 

This  process  of  "getting  the  jump  on"  any  one  is 
an  expression  in  modern  slang  of  a  spiritual  truth  which 
sustains  the  life  of  industry,  invigorates  science  as  well 
as  religion,  and  is  the  essence  of  psycho- therapeutic 
"suggestion." 

A  fine  example  of  this  occurs  in  Shakespeare's 
"  Henry  V."  The  king  is  before  Harfleur.  His  soldiers 
lean  on  their  scaling-ladders,  taking  breath  in  a  pause 
of  the  fight.  By  all  they  hold  sacred  in  home  and  coun- 
try Henry  urges  them  once  more  to  the  attack.  Then 
his  creative  faith  breaks  loose :  — 

**I  see  you  stand  like  greyhounds  in  the  slips, 
Straining  upon  the  start.   The  game's  afoot; 
Follow  your  spirit:  and,  upon  this  charge, 
Cry  —  God  for  Harry!  England!  and  Saint  George! " 

*  R.  W.  Emerson,  Letters  and  Social  Aims.  Essay  on  "Social  Aims.** 


LOYALTY  IN  LOVE  205 

He  saw  them  straining,  —  yes,  with  the  eye  of  faith. 
They  tugged  Hke  greyhounds  in  the  slips,  —  especially 
after  he  had  recognized  their  eagerness.  He  brought  to 
birth  in  them  more  spirit  than  had  otherwise  been 
born,  and  they  in  turn  brought  to  his  lips,  as  he  faced 
them,  the  very  nobility  of  his  words.  A  disloyal  or 
uninterested  spectator  would  have  seen  merely  a  crowd 
of  dirty,  sweaty  soldiers.  King  Henry  saw  that,  too. 
But  within  the  gross  total  of  what  he  saw  he  selected  and 
summoned  forth  what  most  belonged  to  him  and  to  them: 
—  their  germinating  souls,  their  destiny,  the  courage 
which  they  had  when  he  believed  in  it,  not  otherwise. 

Thus  the  best  of  one's  loyalties,  those  to  vocation 
and  to  one's  mate,  begin  with  a  choice.  With  this 
profession,  with  this  person  we  determine  to  unite  our 
forces.  But  if  we  are  to  keep  these  pledges  and  preserve 
the  spirit  of  youth,  the  initial  choice  must  be  renewed 
again  and  again.  After  choosing  the  physician's  calling, 
I  have  still  to  determine  what  sort  of  physician  and  finally 
what  particular  physician  I  shall  be.  Within  the  broad 
field  of  medical  service  I  must  select  the  kind  of  work 
(research,  teaching,  public  health,  surgery,  midwifery, 
general  practice)  which  is  best  suited  to  me  and  seems 
most  needed  at  the  present  time.  Then  within  that  field 
I  must  find  some  particular  path,  some  combination 
of  fnethods  and  manners  which  are  individual  and  pro- 
gressive. Year  by  year  our  initial  choice  is  thus  revived 
and  made  more  sharply  distinctive.  Success  and  hap- 
piness demand  that  it  shall  be  so. 


206  V%^HAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

It  IS  the  same  in  marriage  or  in  friendship.  Again 
and  again  we  repeat  and  re-form  our  original  choice. 
Within  the  domain  of  our  friend's  life  we  find  a  certain 
corner  (his  recreation,  perhaps)  where  we  can  contrib- 
ute something  to  enrich  the  friendship.  There  are  other 
parts  —  say  his  family  life  —  where  with  our  present  ig- 
norance we  are  in  the  way.  We  choose  and  cultivate  the 
parts  that  we  are  fit  for,  leaving  the  rest  for  the  present 
undisturbed.  Next  year,  when  we  come  to  choose  again, 
we  may  be  able  to  direct  our  efforts  more  effectively. 
Here  we  can  learn ;  there  we  are  baffled.  Here  we  are  inr 
full  sympathy ;  there  we  are  in  the  dark.  We  select  and 
select  again,  as  often  as  a  wave  of  enlightenment 
strikes  us. 

But  selection  goes  further  still.  There  are  double 
and  triple  meanings  in  many  of  your  friend's  re^ 
marks.  You  can  make  a  sentence  or  a  person  mean 
different  things  by  the  emphasis  you  put  on  selected 
bits.  Then,  if  you  are  tactful,  you  pick  out  and  answer 
the  meaning  most  in  harmony  with  the  whole  texture 
of  your  friendship;  the  other  meanings  you  ignore. 
I  do  not  mean  anything  subtle.  A  woman  hears  in  her 
husband's  greeting  at  night  fatigue,  anxiety,  a  shade  of 
irritability,  and  a  touch  of  playfulness.  She  ignores  all 
but  the  playfulness,  and  by  encouraging  that  healing 
element  helps  him  to  recover  his  balance.  Just  so  she 
starves  out  some  of  her  child's  faults  by  choosing  to 
ignore  them  and  to  cultivate  his  best. 

You  can  be  willful  and  cruel  instead  of  beneficial  in 


LOYALTY  IN  LOVE  207 

this  selection,  or  in  all  innocence  you  may  go  clean 
astray,  but  you  cannot  escape  the  necessity  of  choice 
by  remaining  passive,  for  even  passivity  is  never  neu- 
tral. It  reinforces  some  element  in  your  friend's  char- 
acter. If  you  decline  to  choose,  the  wheel  of  chance 
makes  the  selection  for  you. 

An  old  Scotch  phrase  describes  a  lively  companion 
as  ''good  at  the  uptake.'*  He  is  responsive,  always 
ready  to  help  out,  always  keen  for  the  game.  If  he 
pauses  it  is  but  to  make  sure  what  game  it  is.  On 
such  responsiveness  friendship  thrives.  When  we  ask 
a  friend  for  the  loan  of  his  cloak,  he  is  swift  to  strip  off 
his  coat  also.  When  we  ask  for  advice  he  gives  us  also 
sympathy  and  his  purse.  Later  as  an  historian  he  may 
place  and  judge  us,  but  now  and  as  a  man  of  action 
your  friend  takes  his  chances  and  contributes  to  fate 
his  best  strength. 

To  meet  our  opportunity  as  Newton  met  the  falling 
apple,  to  greet  our  friend  as  the  "wasteful  woman" 
greeted  Jesus  when  she  poured  out  the  box  of  precious 
ointment  (and  was  chidden  by  the  onlookers  for  doing 
so  much  more  than  was  demanded)  —  this  is  the  way 
not  only  to  friendship,  success,  and  health,  but  to  orig- 
inality and  creative  power.  It  is  when  we  "greet  the 
unseen  with  a  cheer,"  then,  that  we  and  our  opportun- 
ity enter  into  each  other  and  of  our  union  something 
new  is  born. 

In  love,  as  in  work  and  in  play,  give-and-take  is  the 


208  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

great  source  of  novelty,  of  creativeness,  and  so  of 
miracle.  Therefore  between  friends  there  should  grow 
up  a  child,  a  new  truth  and  vision  sprung  from  both. 
This  miracle  of  sprouting  friendship  and  truth  is  not 
best  described  as  "giving "  or  "getting."  It  buds  while 
we  talk  or  merely  sit  together,  fruit  of  our  lives  like 
other  children,  common  delight  to  all,  gift  of  God  to 
all.  Each  of  us  contributes  something ;  God  over  our 
shoulders  contributes  far  more,  which  neither  of  us  is 
conscious  of  giving  but  each  of  receiving. 

Friends  always  face  the  unseen  child  of  their  friend- 
ship, if  they  are  faithful  to  their  unspoken  oath.  Faith- 
fulness to  this  new  child  should  guide  every  moment, 
every  sentence.  In  every  hearty  hand-clasp,  in  every 
flash  of  eye  to  eye,  something  new  is  created.  As  you 
speak  to  a  responsive  friend  you  feel  him  speaking 
through  your  surprised  lips.  Then  your  words  live 
and  fit  the  occasion.  You  try  eagerly  to  thank  your 
friend  for  giving  you  such  thoughts  to  utter.  But  it  is 
rather  God's  bounty  —  his  perpetual  miracle  of  new 
life  sprung  up  between  two  lives  —  that  deserves  our 
gratitude. 

For  our  "child"  and  in  his  name  we  can  accept 
laudation  without  shame  or  self-consciousness  just 
as  we  welcome  money  for  precious  ends.  For  the 
work,  or  the  new  insight  which  we  create .  together, 
we  can  take  —  nay,  demand  —  " favors"  which  mod- 
esty would  prevent  our  taking  for  our  naked  self, 
unclothed  by  the  loyalties  which  dignify  our  clay.  We 


LOYALTY  IN  LOVE  209 

can  accept  money,  time,  love  in  quite  an  amazing 
way,  provided  it  is  for  the  palace  we  are  building.  For 
this  palace  is  one  not  built  with  hands,  —  eternal  in 
the  heavens. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


IMPERSONALITY   IN  LOVE 


One  of  the  most  sacred  things  about  human  ties  is 
this,  that  in  any  intimate  and  sincere  affection  you 
discover  what  is  unique  and,  choosing  it  out  of  all  the 
world,  unite  yourself  with  it.  To  you  if  you  love  your 
father  there  is  literally  no  one  else  like  him  on  earth. 
To  outsiders  he  looks  much  like  the  rest  of  mankind ; 
not  so  to  you.  It  is  true  that  you  did  not  choose  your 
parents,  yet  much  that  is  most  precious  in  your  family 
tie  is  of  your  own  making.  Your  own  family  life  you 
have  helped  to  build  up ;  the  family  jokes  and  customs, 
the  pet  words,  tones,  and  gestures,  are  sacred  to  you 
in  part  because  you  have  helped  to  create  them,  by 
what  you  have  encouraged  and  what  you  have  dis- 
couraged. 

1  The  more  durable  relationships  are  moulded  and 
perfected  by  a  multitude  of  distinctions.  If  these  dis- 
tinctions are  blurred,  the  love  within  us  that  should  go 
to  build  up  a  family  life,  a  center  for  our  other  activi- 
ties, may  burst  its  proper  channels  as  electricity  darts 
from  the  overcharged  wire,  destroying  itself  and  other 
lives  outside.  When  marriage  is  late  or  unhappy,  be- 
cause of  poverty,  because  people  cannot  find  their 
mates,  or  for  less  worthy  reasons,  love  becomes  imper- 
sonal, a  blind,  gigantic  world-energy,  hardly  a  blessing, 


IMPERSONALITY  IN  LOVE  211 

easily  a  curse.  When  it  fails  to  build  up  a  home  or  a 
happiness,  it  may  ennoble  us  like  any  other  lost  cause; 
failing  that,  it  may  drag  us  lower  than  the  beast. 

In  perverted  forms  love  falls  from  the  spiritual 
heights  of  choice  and  mutual  understanding,  and  is 
swept  into  a  current  where  there  are  no  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong,  between  higher  and  lower, 
between  person  and  person,  or  between  person  and 
thing.  The  essential  shame  of  perverted  affection  is  its 
impersonality.  It  is  so  impartial  that  almost  anything 
will  serve  its  purpose.  Losing  the  miraculous  clear- 
sightedness of  loyal  love,  we  follow  the  blind  vague  urg- 
ings  of  a  force  that  stupefies  and  debases  us  until  we 
bump  up  against  a  human  being  as  though  he  were  a 
post.  Persons  are  treated  like  machines.  Indeed,  a 
clever  machine  might  do  as  well. 
.  If  I  am  right  in  charging  up  the  sins  of  the  flesh  to 
the  score  of  impersonality,  the  scope  of  our  campaigns 
against  them  must  be  widened  and  the  tone  of  our  just 
condemnations  must  be  changed.  In  a  recent  book 
called  *'  Hygiene  and  Morality  "  (though  it  deals  almost 
wholly  with  disease  and  immorality),  the  great  power 
of  the  truth  is  weakened  by  a  bitterness  which  stimu- 
lates that  most  disastrous  of  all  class  antagonisms,  the 
antsigonism  of  all  women  against  all  men. 

Such  bitterness  would  be  impossible  if  we  realized 
that  the  essence  of  the  sin  against  which  we  fight  is 
impersonality,  the  sin  of  treating  a  person  as  less  than  a 
person.   For  is  not  that  a  sin  of  which  we  all  are  guilty? 


212  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Is  there  one  of  us  who  does  not  sometimes  treat  a  peA 
son  like  a  machine?  Do  we  always  think  of  the  rail- 
road conductor  as  more  than  a  machine  for  taking 
tickets?  Do  we  not  often  treat  our  fellow-creatures  like 
masks  or  flat  cards  without  substance  and  personality? 
I  have  been  striving  for  years  to  overcome  in  myself 
and  in  my  medical  fellows  the  stupid  professional 
habit  of  treating  a  person  as  a  **case/*  or  a  walking 
disease.  But  the  habit  of  impersonality  persists  like 
original  sin  in  myriad  forms  and  unexpected  ways.  In 
law  courts  we  treat  a  human  being  as  a  "prisoner  at 
the  bar,"  as  the  ''plaintiff"  or  "defendant,"  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  fact  that  he  is  as  real  and  sensitive 
as  ourselves. 

I  often  hear  my  faculty  colleagues  talk  with  similar 
impersonality  about  "the  student,"  his  failings  and 
malefactions.  But  few  of  the  teachers  who  speak  in 
this  way  know  their  students  even  by  name.  They  are 
further  still  from  grasping  the  personalities  which  make 
up  their  classes.  Yet  merely  from  the  point  of  view  of 
success  in  teaching,  it  is  folly  not  to  know  those  whom 
we  are  trying  to  teach.  I  have  often  found  that  after  a 
man  has  given  me  the  opportunity  to  learn  something 
of  his  personal  life,  his  home  and  family,  his  hopes  and 
forebodings,  he  begins  to  do  better  work  in  class.  Such 
improvement  goes  to  show  that  we  never  get  the  best 
out  of  people  so  long  as  we  treat  them  as  a  class,  ignor- 
ing the  unique  interest  and  value  of  each  individual. 
Love  at  its  best  is  a  command  as  well  as  a  desire  and  an 


IMPERSONALITY  IN  LOVE  213 

intimacy.  Its  law  reads,  "Find  and  create  a  new  per- 
sonality in  so  far  as  loyalty  to  your  previous  pledges 
and  insights  allows  you." 

If  your  love  is  pledged  to  one  God,  it  is  sacrilege  to 
worship  others.  If  you  have  sworn  fealty  to  one  coun- 
try, it  is  treason  to  work  against  it  in  the  interests  of 
another.  If  you  commit  yourself  to  the  faith  of  Christ, 
you  cannot  experiment  with  teachings  which  contra- 
dict it,  unless  you  first  renounce  your  faith.  You  hate 
to  see  a  dilettante  meander  from  flower  to  flower  of 
literature,  or  friendship,  because  you  know  that  such 
a  life  is  full  of  broken  pledges  and  is  falling  apart  from 
the  rottenness  of  its  own  structure. 

But  in  many  of  our  most  poignant  experiences  we 
seem  to  love  what  is  impersonal,  and  to  make  no 
pledges  of  loyalty.  When  a  man  drinks  his  wine  or 
jumps  into  a  mountain  stream  for  pleasure,  we  do  not 
reproach  him  with  unfaithfulness  or  brutality.  Some 
people  certainly  love  animals  as  much  as  they  do 
human  beings.  I  think  Emerson  preferred  companion- 
ship with  trees,  flowers,  brooks,  and  skies  to  the  com- 
pany of  men  and  women.  Many  a  musician  loves 
music,  many  a  poet  loves  ** inanimate'*  nature  as  pas- 
sionately as  he  is  capable  of  loving  any  being.  Yet 
these  aifections  seem  to  involve  no  loyalty.  We  turn 
from  one  to  another  in  a  way  that  would  be  villainous 
if  we  were  dealing  with  persons. 

Love  of  food  and  warmth,  of  reading  and  sewing, 
adventure  and  research,  love  of  beauty, —  these  may 


214  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

be  very  impersonal  and  lukewarm  emotions  in  some 
of  us,  yet  no  cooler  than  our  love  of  persons.  From 
birth  to  death,  tepid  may  be  the  hottest  one  knows 
in  human  relation,  and  there  is  no  standard  of  normal 
temperature  in  affection.  Neither  is  there  any  stand- 
ard for  the  degree  of  personality  which  we  should 
recognize  in  our  fellow  men.  Most  of  us  can  be  justly 
blamed,  when  we  stumble  over  a  fellow  creature  as  if 
he  (or  she)  were  a  chair  —  most  of  us,  but  not  all.  Age 
makes  a  difference. 

On  a  crowded  sidewalk  of  the  tenement  district  have 
you  never  felt  a  baby  wandering  between  your  legs  and 
fending  you  off  with  its  hands  precisely  as  if  you  were 
a  tree?  A  few  years  later  he  will  duck  and  dodge  around 
your  person  in  the  heat  of  an  exciting  pursuit  with  just 
as  little  realization  of  your  august  and  delicate  soul. 
Such  impersonality  is  normal  enough  in  babyhood.  But 
some  of  us  grow  long  and  wide,  put  on  the  dress  and 
occupation  of  adults,  and  are  piloted  about  the  streets 
without  ever  ceasing  to  be  babies  at  heart, — without 
ever  acquiring  the  heart  that  recognizes  a  person  as  a 
person.  More  often  we  get  over  the  baby's  absent- 
mindedness,  but  never  grow  beyond,  say,  the  ten-year- 
old's  or  the  adolescent's  limited  sense  of  individuality. 

Swedenborg  expresses  this  by  saying  that,  in  its 
early  and  elemental  forms,  our  love  is  attracted  by 
seXy  not  yet  by  one  of  the  sex.  Even  in  babyhood  some 
girls  show  a  decided  preference  for  men.  Love  of  a 
whole  sex  is  already  awake  in  them,  but  they  are  rarely 


IMPERSONALITY  IN  LOVE  215 

devoted  to  one  man  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  A 
newcomer  is  especially  welcomed.  This  means  that  their 
love  is  at  first  general  and  vague,  though  later  it  will 
attach  itself  to  one  individual  and  cleave  to  him,  for- 
saking all  others.  This  lesson  we  sometimes  fail  to 
learn.  We  then  remain  impersonal  and  desire  the  emo- 
tions of  love,  as  many  people  desire  the  emotions  of 
music,  without  any  awareness  of  an  individual,  or  of 
the  meaning  of  the  piece.  To  yield  to  such  a  desire  is 
villainy  in  case  we  really  know  better  (as  we  usually 
do),  but  not  otherwise.  When  we  listen  to  good  music 
we  are  actually  listening  to  the  outpourings  of  the 
composer's  heart.  He  is  speaking  to  us  earnestly  and 
intensely  and  we  are  listening  to  him,  —  not  to  it.  And 
yet  it  is  often  no  crime  to  drink  in  music  merely  as 
pleasure;  indeed,  for  most  people  it  cannot  be  a  crime 
because  they  know  no  better.  But  it  is  always  a  ghastly 
mistake,  for  it  is  treating  music,  which  is  a  bit  of  a 
person's  life,  as  a  means  of  sensual  gratification. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  condemn  the  act  of 
man  or  woman  who,  knowing  the  nature  of  the  act, 
uses  another  as  a  means  of  pleasure.  But  I  insist  that 
there  are  some  who  do  not  know  the  nature  of  their 
acts,  loose  livers  who  have  no  more  idea  that  they  are 
dealing  with  immortal  souls  than  most  of  us  have 
when  we  drink  in  an  artist's  music  merely  for  our 
pleasure.  Ignorance  is  often  their  curse.  Sin  there 
may  be,  but  if  so,  it  is  the  sin  of  impersonality  and  of 
uentimentalism. 


2i6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

For  the  rake  is  a  sentimentalist,  that  is,  he  loves  emo* 
tion  for  its  own  sake.  He  will  take  or  buy  emotion  from 
many,  just  as  a  girl  may  dissipate  her  energies  in  a 
multitude  of  suitors  or  of  novels,  sucking  in  the  enjoy- 
ment for  its  own  sake  without  answering  by  word  or 
deed,  without  learning  anything  or  building  anything 
out  of  the  experience.  Her  mind  is  too  feeble  to  recog- 
nize individuality  and  to  treat  it  accordingly.  Let  us 
blame  her  as  we  blame  the  ignorant  sexual  offender. 
For  if  we  exclude  (as  in  some  cases  we  can)  the  evils  of 
disease,  alcoholism,  slavery,  secrecy,  and  violation  of 
marriage  vows,  the  curse  of  prostitution  is  this:  It  in- 
volves degradation  because  it  treats  life  as  less  than 
life.  That  is  a  grievous  error,  but  one  of  which  every 
one  of  us  is  guilty  in  some  degree. 

To  recognize  the  universality  of  the  sin  which  we  are 
discussing  makes  us  condemn  ourselves  enough  and 
others  enough,  but  no  one  too  much.  It  is  essentially 
the  same  sin  which  we  meet  in  many  forms :  in  official 
insolence,  in  professional  blindness  to  the  person  be- 
hind the  medical  or  legal  case,  in  heartless  gossip,  flir- 
tation, prostitution. 

Have  I  been  justified  in  using  the  sacred  word 
"love"  so  broadly  as  to  include  sex-relations  outside 
marriage?  It  is  easier  and  cheaper  to  draw  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  love  and  the  more  elemental  sex- 
relations  which  we  condemn  as  merely  *' physical"  or 
brutal.   But  I  believe  that  the  use  of  these  distinctions 


IMPERSONALITY  IN  LOVE  217 

often  does  harm.  To  condemn  even  the  most  imper- 
sonal and  momentary  attraction  as  "merely  physical" 
is  like  calling  a  man  a  mere  brute  or  a  child  a  mere 
blockhead.  The  name  of  the  act  tends  to  brand  itself 
on  the  person,  and  to  degrade  him  at  a  time  when  he 
most  needs  help. 

Call  a  dog  a  bad  name  and  hang  him.  Throw  mud 
enough  and  some  of  it  will  stick.  The  more  degraded 
a  man  is  the  more  he  is  hurt  by  our  contempt.  But  in 
their  ordinary  context  ** merely  physical"  or  "mere 
lust"  are  words  of  contempt,  not  of  scientific  descrip- 
tion. To  condemn  any  conscious  human  act  by  calling 
it  "merely  physical"  is  not  only  bad  psychology;  it  is 
an  attempt  to  push  a  living  act  out  among  the  dead, 
and  the  attempt  may  succeed.  It  is  like  cutting  an  ac- 
quaintance or  disdaining  a  poor  relation.  Just  when 
an  act  is  most  in  need  of  improvement,  we  damn  it 
with  a  phrase.  Just  when  a  traveler  is  most  dreadfully 
astray  from  his  road,  we  further  dishearten  him  by 
telling  him  that  he  has  no  road. 

In  the  less  personal  types  of  love,  falsely  called  "phys- 
ical,*' an  elemental  impulse,  almost  blind  to  the  sacred 
meaning  of  its  trend,  is  groping  its  way  along.  We 
should  help  it  to  find  its  goal,  instead  of  branding  it  as 
forever  outcast.  If  I  think  of  my  sight  and  my  hearing 
as  "merely  physical,"  or  if  I  am  convinced  that  I  am 
tone-deaf  and  color-blind,  in  either  event  no  spiritual 
comprehension  of  music  and  color  is  possible  for  me, 
I  can  only  give  up  trying. 


2i8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Those  who  are  color-blind  and  tone-deaf  in  their 
affections  are  rare.  They  include  among  others  the 
*  *  moral  imbeciles '  *  of  the  courts.  If  we  have  accurately 
named  them,  they  cannot  do  right  or  wrong,  and  can- 
not be  hurt  or  helped  whatever  term  we  apply  to  them. 
But  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances  we  apply  these 
terms  with  reproach  and  condemnation.  First  we  sepa- 
rate body  and  soul  by  an  impassable  chasm;  then  we 
attempt  to  spiritualize  and  subdue  the  body.  A  hun- 
dred recent  books  on  '*sex  hygiene"  tell  us  that  we 
should  teach  the  sacredness  of  the  body  and  of  sex.  But 
the  instant  we  have  branded  love  as  ''body"  or  as 
"sex,"  we  have  begun  to  deprive  it  of  sacredness.  For 
the  sacredness  of  love  comes  from  choice,  and  a  "body  " 
cannot  choose.  The  sacredness  of  love  springs  from 
enthusiasm  and  self -direction  such  as  no  "body" 
possesses. 

It  is  with  an  instinct  that  we  are  dealing,  and  the 
sacredness  of  an  instinct  is  developed  by  showing  its 
profound  though  vague  spirituality.  The  lower  can 
be  rationally  governed  by  the  higher  only  if  they  share 
a  common  nature.  Passion  can  be  mastered  only  by 
an  intenser  passion,  not  by  any  power  that  stands  aloof 
and  contemptuously  denies  its  kinship.  Personality 
is  what  we  want  in  love,  because  personality  is  always 
both  physical  and  spiritual.  In  the  impersonal,  one  of 
these  elements  often  seems  to  get  lost,  though  it  is 
never  gone  beyond  recovery. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


INTEGRITY   IN  LOVE 


Personal  love  begins  with  a  choice  and  a  pledge.  It 
lives  on  through  daily  reincarnations  of  that  original 
choice  in  finer  discriminations.  It  is  debased  whenever 
it  becomes  impersonal  or  passive. 

I  have  still  two  points  to  enlarge  upon:  first,  the 
integrity  of  love;  and  second,  its  centralization. 

Integrity^  whether  in  love,  athletics,  or  debate, 
means  that  one's  personality  is  well  knit,  cleanly  ar* 
ticulated,  "all  there"  when  needed. 

"Nur  wo  du  bist  sei  Alles, 
Immer  kindlich. 
So  bist  du  Alles, 
Bist  uniiberwindlich." 

{Goelhe.) 

The  opposite  of  an  integrated  personality  is  an  im- 
personal "loose-liver,"  and  his  sin  is  not  only  in  his 
impersonality  (just  dwelt  upon),  but  in  his  looseness. 
This  looseness  is  like  our  dawdling  days,  our  shapeless, 
plagiarizing  or  windy  speech  (which  hits  all  around  the 
mark  like  a  drunken  carpenter),  our  slack-minded 
skimming  of  newspapers,  our  vague  complaisant  purr- 
ing'before  a  sunset  or  a  symphony.  Vagueness  and 
diffuseness  in  love  are  bad,  among  other  reasons,  be- 
cause they  disintegrate  personality.  Life  literally  goes 
to  pieces.  The  scenes  and  acts  of  its  drama  express  no 


220  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

plan,  have  no  unity.  The  loose-liver  drifts  into  an 
amour  and  out  of  it  as  drunkards  drift  down  a  street 
of  theaters,  lurching  into  one  playhouse  after  another, 
without  comprehension  of  their  own  lives  or  of  the 
spectacle  before  them.  The  loose-liver  wants  the  emo- 
tion for  its  own  sake  without  relation  to  any  loyal  plan 
of  life.  This  is  bad  in  sexual  relations  outside  marriage. 
It  is  just  as  bad  inside  marriage.  It  is  shamefully  com- 
mon in  our  relations  to  friends  and  to  art. 

Personality,  as  contrasted  both  with  loose-living 
and  with  an  official  and  business-like  way  of  behaving, 
is  a  fine  art.  To  be  a  person,  not  an  automaton,  and 
to  treat  others  as  persons,  not  as  stuffed  images,  is  a 
task  like  that  of  commanding  an  army.  We  need  to 
see  what  is  now  and  for  the  first  time  before  our  eyes. 
We  want  to  know  exactly  what  we  are  about.  If  our 
love  declines  from  integrity  into  infatuation  or  jeal- 
ousy, we  are  drifting  in  the  trough  of  the  sea. 

Such  a  declension  takes  many  forms.  A  familiar 
type  of  it  often  causes  undue  alarm.  When  women 
lose  control  of  their  affections  for  other  women,  the 
life-giving  force  that  makes  friendship  great,  loses  its 
guide  and  becomes  infatuation.  The  evil  of  such 
"crushes"  or  infatuations  is  not  that  some  morbid 
and  evil  element  called  ''sex"  has  suddenly  entered 
the  relation,  but  simply  that  the  people  have  lost  their 
heads.  They  forget  their  other  interests  and  duties; 
they  neglect  their  studies,  their  friends,  and  their 
health.    They  get  morbid  and  sentimental,  self-cen^ 


INTEGRITY  IN  LOVE  221 

tered  and  soft.  They  are  so  near  one  another  that  they 
cannot  see  their  way.  They  can  no  longer  choose  at 
all,  for  infatuation  is  idolatry,  a  form  of  slavery. 

The  evil  of  infatuation  or  idolatry  takes  the  form  of 
jealousy  when  we  are  so  near  a  person  that  we  cannot 
see  his  background  or  our  own.  If  you  are  infatuated, 
you  want  a  person  all  to  yourself;  then  jealousy  is 
inevitable.  The  world's  claim,  the  claim  of  other 
friends,  is  forgotten.  You  are  so  blind,  so  deaf  that 
you  want  to  own  another  person.  But  not  even  in  the 
closest  love  of  man  and  woman  is  there  any  excuse  for 
forgetting  that  they  belong  also  to  the  world  and  are 
here  to  do  its  work. 

Jealousy  and  idolatry  are  opposite  perversions.  In 
jealousy  you  want  to  keep  a  person  wholly  to  yourself. 
In  idolatry  you  want  to  give  yourself  wholly  to  a  per- 
son. These  opposites  may  be  combined.  Idolatry  may 
take  the  form  of  jealousy.  But  whether  simple  or  com- 
plex, the  diagnosis  of  the  trouble  is  essentially  the 
same.  Choice,  orientation,  self-guidance  are  in  abey- 
ance. The  personality  has  become  split  into  conflict- 
ing parties  and  now  one  of  these,  now  another  enslaves 
the  rest.  Reason  —  that  greatly  maligned  habit  —  is 
now  precisely  what  we  want.  Reason  cannot  cure  many 
of  the  diseases  to  which  love  is  subject,  but  when  our 
integrity  is  split  apart,  when  we  have  lost  our  way  and 
are  wandering  at  random,  common  sense,  the  matter- 
of-fact  spirit,  the  ability  to  reason  things  out,  is  the  ob- 
vious remedy  and  in  my  experience  efficient. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

RETICENCE,   MODESTY,   CHASTITY 

In  the  attempt  to  write  about  love,  I  am  rushing  in 
where  angels  fear  to  tread.  Some  of  the  most  angelic 
and  heroic  people  whom  I  have  known  never  would 
suffer  a  sentence  to  be  wrung  from  them  on  such  a  sub- 
ject, and  my  admiration  for  them  is  all  the  greater 
because  of  their  silence.  For  it  was  their  reverence 
which  made  them  dumb.  Love  and  religion,  they 
thought,  are  cheapened  and  besmirched  by  being  dis- 
cussed in  public.  I  agree  that  this  is  often  true.  I  have 
seen  writings  which  cheapen  and  debase  those  great 
subjects;  much  which  can  be  said  about  them  should 
never  be  said.  The  idea  that  anything  can  profitably 
be  blurted  out  in  any  language  and  to  any  audience, 
the  ideal"  of  pure  frankness,  is  babyish  and  barbaric. 
Babies  and  fools  have  no  reserves,  because  they  make 
no  choices.  Personality,  decency,  and  all  that  is  human 
in  us  grows  up  through  selection.  By  their  choice  of 
work,  of  play,  of  companions,  of  words,  people  are  made 
what  they  are. 

But  every  choice  is  also  a  multitude  of  rejections, 
more  numerous  and  more  instructive  the  further  we 
advance.  There  is  no  virtue  in  emptying  out  your 
mind  as  a  boy  does  his  pockets ;  for  minds,  like  pockets. 


RETICENCE,   MODESTY,  CHASTITY    223 

contain  not  only  valuables,  but  rubbish  of  all  sorts. 
Literal  frankness  is  achieved  only  by  maniacs  and  by 
village  gossips,  the  doors  of  whose  minds  swing  free 
and  let  out  indiscriminatingly  whatever  happens  to 
have  accumulated  inside.  Such  literal  frankness  con- 
ceals nothing,  has  no  more  reserve  than  one  of  the  lower 
animals.  I  recently  saw  an  advertisement  of  a  book 
(tj^ical  of  many  more)  boasting  that  about  sex  the 
author  *'has  no  reserves  and  shuns  no  details." 

This  is  like  saying,  "  Dr.  Skinemalive  is  bold  enough 
to  reveal  all  the  details  of  heaven,  together  with  the 
anatomy  and  physiology  of  angels,  the  method  of  tun- 
ing harps  and  the  construction  of  street  pavements  in 
the  New  Jerusalem.  He  has  thrown  off  all  false  mod- 
esty. He  has  no  reserves;  he  shuns  no  details." 

Any  one  who  supposes  that  he  knows  so  much  about 
love  and  sex  that  he  needs  only  to  open  his  mouth  and 
frankly  emit  the  truth  on  these  matters  is  astoundingly, 
pathetically,  ludicrously  ignorant  of  the  huge  continent 
whose  shore  he  is  touching.  Frankness  is  a  virtue  only 
when  the  subject  in  hand  is  perfectly  simple.  For  in- 
stance: "Are  you  or  are  you  not  hired  by  the  United 
Railways  to  vote  in  their  interest?"  "Have  you  more 
than  one  wife?  "  "  Do  you  like  my  cooking?  "  To  answer 
thescr  questions  frankly  may  be  a  difficult  moral  act, 
but  there  is  no  need  of  modesty  about  our  knowledge. 
We  know  enough  to  answer.  The  only  question  is. 
Shall  we  let  it  out?  But  the  people  who  are  quite  ready 
to  be  frank  and  open  about  love,  forget  that  their 


224  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

minds  do  not  contain  what  they  are  offering,  but  only 
a  caricature  of  it,  ghostly  as  the  harp  and  angel  pic- 
tures of  heaven,  grotesque  as  the  ideal  of  married  life 
depicted  in  comic  supplements  of  Sunday  papers. 
The  "virtue"  of  frankly  letting  out  what  we  do  not 
possess  is  a  vice  or  a  misfortune. 

For  a  half  or  quarter  truth  may  be,  in  result  if  not  in 
intention,  a  gross  libel.  To  call  a  string  quartette  **the 
scraping  of  horses'  hairs  on  cats'  bowels"  is  literally 
true,  but  if  any  one  believed  it  to  be  the  whole  truth,  it 
would  become  a  blasphemy.  Most  of  the  "frank" 
statements  made  or  printed  about  sex  within  the  past 
decade  seem  to  me  as  false  and  misleading  as  an  account 
of  music  in  terms  of  gut  and  horsehair.  What  we  ven- 
ture to  say  on  so  great  a  subject  must  attempt  to  be 
representative  of  the  vast  regions  left  untouched,  as 
the  flag  represents  the  country,  —  not  literally,  but 
symbolically. 

But  grant  {per  impossihile)  that  a  person  might  know 
all  that  is  vitally  important  about  love ;  would  frank- 
ness be  then  the  chief  quality  that  he  would  need  in 
order  to  enlighten  others?  Does  a  great  teacher  of 
history  or  music  need  chiefly  frankness  to  convey  his 
knowledge  to  others?  Does  he  not  rather  need  art, 
painstaking  choice  of  methods,  scrupulous  avoidance 
of  anything  that  is  misleading?  Good  teaching  of  his- 
tory requires  eloquence,  penetration,  and  grasp;  it  also 
requires  (and  this  is  my  present  point)  rejection,  ret- 
icence, and  reserve. 


RETICENCE,   MODESTY,    CHASTITY     225 

The  limitation  of  our  knowledge  and  the  difficulties 
of  presentation  should  be  enough  to  make  any  one 
aware  that  frankness  will  avail  but  little  in  speaking  or 
writing  upon  any  great  subject.    But  in  dealing  with 
love  and  sex  there  is  especial  need  of  restraint.  One 
brings  up  the  subject  presumably  because  one  hopes  to 
direct  some  one's  attention  profitably,  to  help  some  one 
to  guide  himself  toward  what  is  beautiful  or  heroic  in 
love  and  away  from  its  baser  aspects;  in  short,  to  focus 
some  one's  consciousness  aright.  This  attempt  implies 
that  consciousness  can  get  out  of  focus,  or  can  get  its 
focus  in  the  wrong  place.   Indeed  it  can,  and  most  dis- 
astrously!    Medical  students,  while  studying  saliva, 
sometimes  become  so  vividly  aware  of  their  own 
mouths  (the  inside  of  them,  I  mean)  that  a  copious  and 
sometimes  ludicrously  inconvenient  salivation  results. 
I  have  seen  a  hospital  patient  drooling  night  and  day 
as  the  result  of  a  "fixed  idea"  about  the  inside  of  his 
mouth.  He  began  to  think  about  it  and  could  not  stop! 
You  can  try  the  experiment  and  verify  the  result  (on 
a  small  scale)  whenever  you  like,  but  I  advise  you  not 
to.  I  should  not  have  brought  up  the  unpleasant  sub- 
ject at  all  but  for  a  desire  to  reduce  to  absurdity  the 
statement  so  often  made  that  there  is  nothing  about 
sex  which  cannot  harmlessly  and  profitably  be  talked 
about.    This  belief  is  false.    It  is  contradicted  by  the 
physiology  of  reflex  action.  Saliva  can  be  made  to  flow 
copiously  not  only  by  pepper  or  any  other  irritant,  but 
by  thinking  about  the  saliva  in  one's  mouth.    To  be 


226  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

constantly  or  imperatively  conscious  of  sex  is  to  be  in 
a  miserable  or  a  dangerous  state.  Talk  about  sex  may 
produce  or  augment  this  danger. 

There  is  ample  reason,  then,  for  reticence  and  mod- 
esty when  we  approach  anything  so  sacred  as  love. 
There  ought  to  be  a  taboo,  not  about  venereal  diseases 
and  their  consequences,  but  about  anything  that  tends 
to  upset  the  scenery  of  consciousness  and  dislocate  the 
background  into  the  foreground.  There  is  much  that 
ought  to  be  kept  out  of  sight  and  out  of  consciousness 
most  of  the  time,  for  the  same  reason  that  wise  people 
do  not  think  of  their  saliva,  of  their  personal  beauty, 
or  of  their  personal  ugliness.  Consciousness  does  harm 
whenever  it  interferes  with  something  meant  to  be  left 
out  of  it,  —  the  heart,  the  digestion,  one's  feet  while 
dancing,  one's  self  while  speaking  in  public. 

One  of  the  saving  graces  of  reserve,  then,  is  to  pre- 
serve consciousness  from  dislocation.  It  has  other  uses. 
Reserve  is  normal  and  right  about  anything  that  is 
germinating  in  consciousness.  To  talk  about  such  things 
is  like  pulling  a  young  plant  up  to  look  at  its  roots,  or 
pulling  open  a  closed  bud.  You  can  seriously  hurt  a 
germinating  aspiration,  a  nascent  perception  of  beauty, 
truth,  or  love  by  exhibiting  it  in  public  or  even  in  the 
full  light  of  consciousness.  Such  things  should  grow, 
like  roots,  in  quiet  and  in  darkness.  Books  or  talks  that 
are  rightly  considered  "too  old"  at  any  particular 
stage  of  a  child's  growth,  do  harm  either  by  withering 
what  is  not  yet  ready  for  the  light,  or  by  stimulating 


RETICENCE,   MODESTY,  CHASTITY      227 

premature  growth.  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of  us 
adults  are  still  too  young  for  many  of  the  ideas  that  are 
floating  about  to-day.  But  who  is  wise  enough  to  act 
as  censor? 

Each  ''grown-up"  must  decide  for  himself,  and  to 
onlookers  his  decisions  about  reserves  must  often  seem 
arbitrary.  The  choice  of  what  you  will  bring  into  the 
full  light  of  publicity,  what  you  will  reveal  to  a  few, 
and  what  you  will  not  fully  reveal  even  to  yourself, 
is  as  personal,  as  private  a  matter  as  the  choice  of  a 
profession  or  of  a  mate.  If  each  is  true  to  the  best 
he  knows,  his  fundamental  reserves  and  choices  must 
often  seem  incomprehensible  to  the  rest  of  us.  We 
should  expect  and  respect  such  obscurities  in  each  other 
as  we  admire  the  half  lights  and  shadows  of  a  picture. 
We  should  deprecate  the  lack  of  them. 

One  night,  after  reading  Swedenborg,  and  imbibing, 
I  suppose,  something  of  his  habits  of  mind,  I  dreamed 
that  I  heard  the  sound  of  many  voices,  and  when  I  in- 
quired of  my  spectral  guide  what  their  meaning  might 
be,  he  told  me  that  they  were  praising  the  virtues  of 
men. 

'*Look,**  said  one,  "with  what  an  agony  of  heroic 
effort  that  poor  athlete  is  struggling  to  lift  a  hen's 
feather!" 

"True,"  said  another.  *'But  can  you  not  pity  and 
praise  still  more  that  generous  millionaire?  See,  he  is 
giving  his  hard-won  copper  cent  in  bounteous  charity 


228  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

to  the  newsboy  who  begs  of  him  to  buy  the  last  of  the 
evening  papers." 

"My  admiration,**  said  a  third  voice,  **goes  out  irre- 
sistibly to  that  high-born  Fifth  Avenue  damsel  who 
from  cannibalism  so  rigidly  refrains.  In  all  the  unspot- 
ted record  of  her  life  where  can  you  find  one  charge 
of  breaking  and  entering,  one  moment's  yielding  to 
the  sweet  lure  of  assault  and  battery?" 

I  believe  that  much  which  is  called  chastity  is  about 
as  virtuous  as  the  people  of  my  dream.  Chastity  surely 
means  nothing  without  some  temptation  to  be  unchaste. 
It  is  as  soulless  and  dead  as  the  "courage '*  of  those  who 
are  not  aware  of  danger,  or  the  "  temperance"  of  those 
who  hate  the  taste  of  liquor.  In  frigid  people  the  ab- 
sence of  sexual  sin  is  no  more  virtuous  than  the  ab- 
sence of  hair  on  a  bald  head.  Purity,  like  health  or 
peace,  may  be  an  accident  or  an  apathy.  It  may  be  the 
fruit  of  heroic  victories.  Only  the  Eternal  knows.  No 
acquaintance  with  a  man's  daily  doings  reveals  any- 
thing decisive  about  the  matter.  Statistics  and  science, 
when  asked  to  testify,  have  other  engagements.  Hence 
no  one  will  ever  be  able  justly  to  indict  half  the  human 
race  till  a  measure  of  temptation  as  well  as  of  tempera- 
ture is  invented.  With  such  an  instrument  who  knows 
how  many  zero  readings  would  be  registered? 

We  cannot  praise  chastity  as  the  abstention  from  cer- 
tain acts,  for  then  normal  marriage  would  be  unchaste. 
We  cannot  praise  it  as  the  innocence  of  evil,  for  with- 
out temptation  there  can  be  no  virtue.  Chastity  must 


RETICENCE,  MODESTY,  CHASTITY    229 

mean  victory  over  the  enemy,  not  ignorance  of  his 
strength.  We  must  feel  the  temptation  and  overcome 
it.  By  what  power?  By  cultivating  the  highest  type  of 
personal  relation  to  which  we  can  attain.  Whatever  per- 
son, book,  game,  or  art  wakes  us  to  admire  or  to  ap- 
proximate heroism  in  personal  relations,  discourages 
unchastity ,  for  heroism  in  personal  relations  is  the  basis 
of  all  genuine  chastity. 

By  the  consecration  of  affection  we  gain  victory  over 
the  lower  or  impersonal  affection.  We  do  not  eliminate 
the  enemy  altogether,  but  we  prevent  his  dwelling  on 
our  territory.  For  unchastity  is  domination  by  the 
impersonal  love  of  sex  rather  than  by  love  of  an  indi- 
vidual. Such  domination  (inside  or  outside  marriage) 
disorganizes  soul  and  body  even  when  no  visible  act 
of  unchastity  is  committed.  A  certain  type  of  day- 
dreaming and  novel-reading  may  disintegrate  and  ruin 
character  more  hopelessly  than  prostitution. 

What  is  it  that  is  poisoned  or  deformed  by  unchas- 
tity so  defined?  No  law  of  the  state  and  no  law  of  health 
need  be  broken.  In  many  forms  of  unchastity  no  other 
person  need  be  injured,  no  utility  need  be  destroyed. 
What  is  injured  is  that  for  which  the  state,  the  laws  of 
hygiene,  and  all  other  utilities  exist :  the  integrity  and 
richness  of  personality.  The  worth  of  a  personality  is 
not  determined  altogether  by  the  quality  of  the  ideas  or 
impulses  which  pass  through  it.  Many  of  the  thoughts 
and  desires  of  maniacs,  criminals,  and  degenerates 
have  at  some  time,  in  sleep  or  waking,  passed  through 


230  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

most  people's  minds.  But  normal  minds  do  not  wel- 
come such  thoughts  or  give  them  harborage.  They  are 
pushed  out  by  an  instinct  of  mental  integrity  which 
it  is  one  of  the  main  tasks  of  education  to  cultivate. 
They  are  warned  to  "move  on"  because  they  threaten 
that  integrity. 

But  in  the  effort  to  suppress  mental  anarchy  it  is 
foolish  simply  to  eject  offending  thoughts  and  try  to 
keep  busy  in  athletics,  science,  or  business.  As  soon  as 
our  attention  is  distracted  by  fatigue  or  leisure,  what 
was  forcibly  (not  rationally)  thrown  out  comes  creep- 
ing in  again.  An  evil  or  impersonal  love  must  be  cher- 
ished and  made  personal,  —  developed,  not  crushed. 
The  saint  must  become  more  human  than  the  sinner, 
or  fall  below  him  because  impersonal  love  (unwisely 
called  "mere  sex  attraction")  is  less  than  human, 

I  wish  to  head  off  two  false  conclusions  which  might 
be  drawn  from  the  foregoing  remarks:  first,  that  celi- 
bacy is  lower  than  the  marriage  state;  and,  second, 
that  in  marriage,  love  can  find  its  perfection.  I  see  no 
reason  to  believe  in  either  of  these  popular  modern 
dogmas.  The  second  depends  upon  the  first.  If  we 
believe  that  in  marriage  it  is  possible  to  achieve  the 
highest  ideal  of  love,  to  reach  the  goal  of  perfection  in 
personal  relations,  of  course  celibacy  is  at  best  a  neces- 
saiy  evil.  But  if  we  believe,  as  I  do,  that  marriage 
and  every  other  form  of  human  happiness  becomes  idol- 
atrous and  hollow  unless  it  is  conceived  and  lived  out 
as  a  symbolic  representation  of  our  union  with  God, 


RETICENCE,   MODESTY,  CHASTITY     231 

then  in  celibacy  one  may  find  other  (and,  for  some 
persons,  better)  symbols  of  that  union. 

The  idea  that  marriage  gets  its  highest  significance 
as  a  means  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  race  is  to  my 
mind  another  shallow  one.  Marriage  is  a  means  to  more 
human  life,  but  what  is  human  life  for?  It  is  perfected, 
we  are  told,  in  marriage,  wherein  again  it  perpetuates 
i.rself  in  its  offspring.  This  is  arguing  in  a  circle.  The 
Christian  idea  of  the  sacramental  or  symbolic  purpose 
of  marriage  seems  to  me  the  true  one. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

IMPERFECT  MUTUALITY  IN  LOVE:  ROMANCE 

We  expect  and  demand  mutuality  in  all  sorts  of  places. 
We  are  always  striving  for  it  in  talk,  in  the  interchange 
of  actors  and  audience,  in  the  relations  of  labor  and 
capital,  as  well  as  in  affection.  Doleful  and  comic  are 
the  failures  of  mutuality  in  shaking  hands.  Some  hold 
and  pump  our  hands  ad  nauseam.  Others  go  into  a 
hand-grasp  as  gingerly  as  they  pick  a  hot  coal  from 
the  carpet.  Yet  for  a  lover,  the  touch  of  a  beloved 
hand  is  almost  a  kiss. 

What  have  we  to  hope  for  in  the  attainment  of  a 
more  perfect  response  in  love?  What  can  we  do  about 
it? 

Perfect  response  in  any  sort  of  human  intercourse  Is 
almost  as  unattainable  as  literal  justice  (falsely  called 
'*poetic").  Some  cherish  the  hope  of  a  justice  which 
always  responds  or  corresponds  with  what  we  deserve. 
But  as  no  man  knows  what  he  deserves  or  what  would 
repay  him,  justice  can  never  be  more  than  a  clumsy 
approximation  to  his  desires. 

All  responses  are  tainted  with  the  same  imperfection. 
When  I  laugh  at  your  joke  our  wits  do  not  precisely 
meet.  Only  a  practiced  tolerance  or  an  unusual  dull- 
ness can  prevent  us  from  seeing  that  there  is  more  (or 
less)  meaning  in  the  joke  than  in  the  laugh;  there 


MUTUALITY  AND   ROMANCE         233 

must  be,  just  because  the  joke  is  yours.  It  has  been 
bred  amidst  the  particular  associations,  the  unshar- 
able  memories,  the  comic  failures  and  abortive  aspira- 
tions of  your  life.  By  these  your  own  appreciation  of 
your  joke  is  tinged;  but  my  appreciation  cannot  be. 
Perhaps  I  see  more  in  it  than  you  do ;  I  cannot  see  pre- 
cisely the  same.  But  the  point  is  that  I  see  enough  to 
join  you,  to  follow  you,  perhaps  lead  you,  as  my  an- 
swering laugh  seems  to  say. 

My  response  means  more.  It  dives  as  far  as  it  can 
go  in  the  direction  of  your  meaning,  then  shoots  along 
the  rest  of  the  way  by  the  impetus  of  faith.  God  only 
knows  exactly  what  your  joke  means  to  you.  He  knows 
far  better  than  you  do.  He  also  knows  exactly  how 
much  my  answering  laugh  understands.  In  Him,  and 
only  in  Him  we  ultimately  meet,  and  it  is  our  more  or 
less  enlightened  consciousness  of  this  absolute  but  hid- 
den union  which  makes  the  joke  a  success.  We  intend 
to  meet,  and  because  of  that  intention  we  do  meet,  by 
faith,  which  takes  here  one  of  its  protean  disguises, 
—  an  all-encompassing  good  nature.  We  laugh,  partly 
at  the  point  of  the  joke,  partly  out  of  pure  good  nature 
which  pardons  inanities  and  supplies  missing  links,  be- 
cause it  is  determined  to  make  the  joke  a  success,  at  all 
hazards.  Such  good  nature  makes  mutuality  possible 
in  fun. 

In  simpler  words,  laughter  is  partly  contagious,  not 
purely  intelligent.  We  often  laugh  from  general  sym- 
pathy or  because  spme  one  "sets  usoff,'*  not  because  we 


234  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

see  the  joke.  The  general  upshot  of  his  laughter  hits  us, 
whether  we  catch  the  point  or  not.  Sometimes  this 
contagion  in  fun  happens  without  any  effort  on  our 
part.  Sometimes  it  is  impossible  without  an  effort, 
first  to  see  what  the  joke  means  and  then  to  project 
ourselves  into  the  mirth  any  way  by  hook  or  crook. 
In  lifeless  moods  we  fail.  We  find  the  doors  of  our  sym- 
pathy tight  shut  against  the  warmth  of  most  people's 
fun.  Their  words  and  gestures  penetrate  but  leave  us 
frigid  unless  we  can  summon  good  nature  enough  to 
feel  their  spirit. 

Without  a  free  gift  of  good  nature  there  can  be  no 
mutual  understanding,  especially  in  love.  Congenial- 
ity, physical,  intellectual,  emotional,  or  spiritual,  can 
never  be  perfect  as  long  as  we  remain  human  growing, 
imperfect  beings.  Lock  and  key  can  be  made  to  fit 
each  other  perfectly  because  they  are  dead,  but  if  they 
were  alive  they  would  never  fit.  Only  the  less-than- 
human  or  the  more-than-human  can  fit  each  other 
perfectly  or  answer  each  other's  love  in  complete 
mutuality.  Yet  in  love,  as  in  laughter,  faith  can  do 
wonders.  Love  meets  love  to  some  extent  by  spon- 
taneous sympathy,  but  far  more  by  intention  and 
contagion. 

Because  of  this  ** justification  by  faith"  well-meant 
failures  are  infinitely  touching  and  mutually  endearing 
to  many  a  faithful  couple.  Only  Omniscience  holds  the 
whole  of  what  a  kiss  or  a  blunder  can  mean,  but  when 
two  mates  know  thatf  there  is  no  end  to  their  power  to 


MUTUALITY  AND  ROMANCE         235 

bear,  to  forgive,  to  supplement,  to  take  for  granted, 
in  love  and  word. 

Mutuality,  then,  is  attained  not  because  a  prees- 
tablished  harmony  brings  together  exactly  the  right 
people  at  precisely  the  right  time  and  gives  each  of 
them  identical  thoughts,  identical  joy,  or  identical 
affection  which  flame  up  simultaneously  but  indepen- 
dently in  each.  We  meet  and  answer  one  another  bur- 
dened by  a  double  imperfection;  neither  can  express 
what  he  means,  neither  can  precisely  understand  even 
the  bit  that  gets  expressed.  But  love  excites  love  in 
part,  as  laughter  begets  laughter,  by  the  contagion  of 
its  intention.  Granted  that  we  are  determined  once 
for  all  to  play  the  game  and  to  meet  somehow ;  then 
we  play  into  a  common  intention  as  court-tennis  play- 
ers play  against  the  same  wall,  not  directly  at  each 
other.  Practice  makes  us  apt  to  anticipate  our  fellow's 
position.  Mutuality  in  love  is  an  "art"  in  which  pro- 
ficiency is  attained  by  labor  rather  than  by  preestab- 
lished  harmony.  But  the  labor  draws  us  into  adven- 
tures, into  danger  and  daring,  which  is  in  itself  enough 
to  explain  our  incurable  tendency  to  find  love  romantic 
and  so  perpetually  to  anger  Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw. 

Shaw,  and  all  who  strive  for  literalism  in  love,  set 
to  work  first  to  take  the  uncertainties  and  the  infini- 
ties out  of  it.  Marriage,  they  say,  shall  be  a  contract 
for  specified  purposes  under  state  control.  Love  is  "a 
ridiculous  exaggeration  of  the  difference  between  one 


236  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

person  and  another."  These  differences  are  in  truth 
so  slight  that  there  can  be  no  romantic  adventure  in 
finding  one  another,  no  danger  of  losing  one  another, 
no  mystery  anywhere,  but  only  confusion  and  muddle- 
headedness. 

Now,  romance,  I  take  it,  is  the  sense  of  mystery, 
beauty,  danger,  and  infinity  in  love.  We  find  these 
blessings  in  love  as  we  do  in  night.  Mr.  Shaw  finds 
them,  too,  wherever  he  is  especially  interested ;  for  in- 
stance, in  the  '* hallucination"  out  of  which  his  writ- 
ings (as  he  now  tells  us)^  spring. 

To  ignore  the  romance  in  love,  in  history,  in  games, 
in  music,  or  anywhere  else,  is  one  of  the  easiest  things 
in  the  world.  One  has  only  to  slouch  because  one  is 
sick  of  standing  erect,  to  refuse  the  task  of  looking 
behind  the  obvious  and  relapse  into  sleepy  literalism. 
As  one's  eyes  grow  fatigued  with  reading,  the  letters 
cease  to  be  symbols  and  become  letters  only.  Meaning, 
interest,  and  beauty  die  out  of  the  words  on  the  page. 
They  are  only  printer's  type,  no  longer  signposts  to 
infinite  meaning. 

There  is  no  sin  in  this  sort  of  blindness,  provided 
one  recognizes  that  one's  fatigue  and  not  the  letters 
are  at  fault.  But  to  sneer  at  the  letters  because  they 
are  only  ridiculous  black  scratches,  to  sneer  at  all  who 
find  wisdom  or  beauty  in  what  these  scratches  mean,  is 
simply  to  stagger  and  lurch  because  one  is  too  bored  to 

*  In  an  answer  to  the  inquiry  of  the  Modern  Historic  Records  Asso- 
ciation, quoted  in  Boston  Transcript,  June  15,  1912. 


MUTUALITY  AND   ROMANCE         237 

walk  straight.  Every  one  finds  romance  in  what  he 
loves.  He  cannot  keep  it  out.  No  one  finds  romance 
when  he  is  too  indifferent  to  look  for  it  or  too  tired  to 
translate  symbols  into  meaning.  A  baby  is  a  lump  of 
flesh,  a  symphony  is  a  long,  confused  noise,  a  picture 
is  a  bit  of  discolored  canvas,  and  man  is  an  ugly, 
featherless  biped  to  any  one  who  has  not  interest 
enough  to  see  more. 

To  all  of  us,  when  we  are  sleepy  or  seasick,  the  world 
presents  itself  in  these  terms.  Now  and  then  Mr.  Shaw 
attracts  notice  by  loudly  exclaiming,  in  print,  that  a 
man  can  see  best  when  his  eyes  are  too  sleepy  to  open, 
and  that  under  these  conditions  he  sees  no  romance  in 
the  world.  Romance  is  not  a  surface  quality.  It  is, 
therefore,  no  more  visible  on  the  surface  of  the  sleepy 
man's  world  than  excitement  in  the  pages  of  the  sleepy 
man's  book. 

By  being  just  a  trifle  more  blase  than  Mr.  Shaw  one 
can  wipe  science,  mathematics,  color,  and  shape  out  of 
the  world.  All  the  experiences  of  our  devitalized  moods 
are  flat,  colorless,  meaningless,  and  stale,  and  it  is  as 
easy  to  let  ourselves  get  devitalized  as  it  is  to  drop  our 
end  of  the  load  which  we  are  helping  to  carry.  If  we  ^ 
give  up  the  effort  of  attention  which  sustains  the  world 
of  rpmance  in  love,  then  science,  commerce,  and  social 
life  simultaneously  collapse  and  we  progress  towards 
savagery.  But  tell  me  what  most  vitally  interests  a 
man  and  I  will  tell  you  where  to  look  for  the  saving 
romantic  grace  of  his  nature. 


¥ 


238  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Mystery^^b^aiity,  danger,  and  a  prehensile  affection 
spring  up  in  many  a  modem's  mind  when  he  thinks  of 
his  new  automobile  or  of  the  wildcat  stocks  which  he 
manipulates.  Romance  crops  out  in  strange  places, 
but  better  anywhere  than  nowhere,  for  without  it  we 
creak  like  dry  sole  leather. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

MARRIAGE 

In  this  book  marriage  means  such  a  union  of  one  man 
and  one  woman  as  is  described  in  the  Christian  marriage 
service.  For  various  reasons  such  an  ideal  union  is  not 
always  attained  in  modern  "civilized"  communities. 
But  of  late  we  have  been  told  by  certain  "advanced" 
writers  that  it  ought  not  to  be  attained,  or  retained,  any 
longer.  Other  institutions,  they  say,  —  the  State,  the 
Church,  —  have  been  radically  transformed ;  but  mar- 
riage, at  least  in  theory,  has  retained  its  old-fashioned 
shape,  which,  according  to  G.  B.  Shaw,  suits  only  a 
small  minority  of  the  (English)  people.  Is  it  not  time 
for  matrimony  to  join  the  march  of  evolution  and  be 
brought  up  to  date? 

Moral  and  spiritual  growth  certainly  ought  to  take 
place  in  the  marriage  relation,  but  it  is  often  forgotten 
that  change  and  growth  are  not  the  same.  Change 
may  be  so  radical  as  to  destroy  growth.  Forest  fires 
and  popular  crazes  are  changes  which  abolish  develop- 
ijient.  Nothing  grows  unless  it  has  a  central  core  of 
identity  which  does  not  change.  A  tree  can  be  changed 
into  parlor  matches,  but  it  cannot  grow  parlor  matches 
like  leaves.  The  State  can  grow  only  so  long  as  some 
idea  of  government  persists.  It  can  decay  into  anarchy, ' 


240  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

but  it  cannot  grow  into  anarchy,  because  no  **it**  is 
left  to  grow. 

So  marriage  will  not  grow  but  decay  if  it  "outgrows *' 
its  fundamental  purpose.  But  before  considering  radi- 
cal changes,  would  it  not  be  well  to  give  it  fair  trial? 
We  can  hardly  say  that  marriage  has  been  fairly  tried, 
as  long  as  man  remains  so  fitfully  and  imperfectly  mono- 
gamic  as  he  now  is.  Let  us  call  to  mind  what  can  be 
said,  first  in  defense,  then  in  praise,  of  the  plan  to 
make  it  a  fact  instead  of  —  as  now  —  an  ideal. 

That  monogamy  is  enjoined  by  Christianity  and  by 
modem  Judaism,  that  it  is  the  law  of  the  land,  that 
public  opinion  supports  it  enough  to  make  frank  polyg- 
amy a  disgrace,  that  the  history  of  marriage  seems  to 
tend  on  the  whole  towards  monogamy,  in  theory  if 
not  in  practice,  —  all  these  are  important  facts.  But  to 
my  mind  they  are  not  a  final  justification  of  monogamy. 
For  the  current  interpretations  of  religion,  law,  tradi- 
tion, and  public  opinion  are  subject  to  change,  and  may 
be  modified  by  the  conscience  of  a  later  generation. 
The  torture  of  law  breakers  was  once  supported  by 
religion,  law,  tradition,  and  public  opinion;  in  fact,  it  is 
only  within  a  century  that  these  currents  have  been 
reversed.  Marriage  must  have  a  foundation  deeper 
than  any  tradition  or  enactment. 

Against  secret  polygamy  and  violation  of  the  marriage 
vow  it  may  be  urged,  first,  that  such  secrecy  involves 
lying  and  sneaking  about  back  streets;  second,  that 
jealousy  and  marital  bitterness  are  almost  sure  to 


MARRIAGE  241 

poison  the  lives  of  those  concerned;  and  third,  that  a 
family  racked  by  any  such  strain  makes  a  poor  nest  for 
any  children  who  may  be  born.  These  three  reasons 
for  monogamy  are  more  important  than  those  derived 
from  shifting  tradition  or  enactments.  Yet  they  do  not 
seem  to  me  final.  If  public  opinion  changed,  the  re- 
straint of  secrecy  might  be  removed  and  lying  would 
become  unnecessary.  If  every  one  willingly  agreed  to 
polygamous  and  polyandrous  relations,  there  might  be 
no  bitterness  or  jealousy  in  them,  and  it  seems  at  least 
possible  than  any  arrangement  which  suited  parents 
might  be  made  to  suit  children.  They  might  not  object 
to  being  brought  up  by  the  State  according  to  the 
platonic  principle. 

George  Bernard  Shaw  and  other  Socialists  appear 
to  think  that  economic  reasons  are  basic  in  the  sup- 
port of  monogamic  marriage.  If  wealth  were  justly 
(i.e.,  socialistically)  produced  and  distributed,  no  one, 
they  think,  could  afford  the  expense  of  plural  marriage. 
But  if  all  parents  worked  and  the  birth  of  children  were 
prevented,  I  do  not  see  why  plural  marriage  need  in- 
volve increased  expense. 

If  monogamic  marriage  is  to  continue  in  theory  and 
to  be  steadily  approached  in  practice,  we  must  have 
better  reasons  than  any  of  these.  Our  belief  in  it  must 
be  founded  on  something  more  fundamental  than 
economy.  The  temporary  codes  of  Church,  law,  and 
public  opinion  must  have  something  back  of  their 
fiat. 


242  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

A  sound  defense  of  monogamy  must  justify  first  of 
all  its  exclusiveness:  —  **  Forsaking  all  others,  keep 
thee  only  unto  her  so  long  as  ye  both  shall  live."  Of 
course  this  does  not  mean  that  married  people  shall  not 
make  friends  among  both  sexes.  It  can  only  mean  that 
there  shall  be  in  marriage  a  core  of  primary  intimacies 
shared  with  no  other  human  being.  The  law  insists 
only  upon  the  physical  and  economic  side  of  this  prim- 
acy. So  long  as  a  man  does  not  commit  adultery,  so  long 
as  he  supports  his  wife  and  is  not  cruel,  or,  in  variously 
defined  ways,  intolerable,  to  her,  the  law  is  satisfied. 
It  makes  no  attempt  to  buttress  the  spiritual  privacy 
of  the  marriage,  but  on  the  physical  side  the  law  stands 
for  absolute  privacy.  Whatever  else  is  shared,  this 
shall  not  be  shared.  It  is  for  the  public  good  that  tlie 
marital  relation  shall  not  be  public  or  promiscuous. 
So  says  the  law. 

Yet  such  exclusiveness  is  contrary  to  the  general 
trend  of  the  times.  We  are  less  and  less  tolerant  of  ex- 
clusive rights  and  private  ownership.  Hence  it  is  natu- 
ral that  a  considerable  wing  within  the  Socialist  party 
should  be  opposed  to  all  legal  sanctions  for  the  exclu- 
siveness of  marriage. 

The  justification  of  any  sort  of  exclusiveness  is  its 
fruits  in  character.  Tradition,  law,  and  public  opinion 
have  been  guided  thus  far  by  the  belief  that  character, 
service,  and  happiness  are  best  built  up  through  affec- 
tions which  are  to  some  extent  exclusive  because  they 


MARRIAGE  243 

are  loyal  to  the  objects  of  their  own  free  choice.  Is  this 
reasonable? 

Let  us  draw  some  parallels  from  outside  the  field  of 
married  love.  It  is  generally  agreed  that  in  the  choice 
of  a  country,  an  occupation,  or  a  residence  there  should 
be,  if  possible,  finality.  A  man  who  wanders  from  coun- 
try to  country  soon  becomes  a  "man  without  a  coun- 
try." He  is  usually  unhappy  and  amounts  to  little. 
It  is  hard  for  him  to  form  lasting  ties  of  interest,  friend- 
ship, and  service  or  to  become  a  happy  and  growing 
creature.  Law  backs  up  this  conclusion  to  a  certain 
extent.  Sometimes  it  forbids  a  man  to  emigrate  or  im- 
migrate. Invariably  (so  far  as  I  know)  it  forbids  him 
to  hold  citizenship  in  one  country  and  then  act  against 
it  in  the  interests  of  another.  Such  laws  are  violated, 
but  the  sentiment  that  each  man  owes  loyalty  to  one 
(native  or  adopted)  country  is  still  strong  enough  to  re- 
sist overt  internationalist  propaganda.  Most  of  us  be- 
lieve that,  while  we  should  be  friendly  with  all  coun- 
tries and  open-minded  towards  their  ideas  and  customs, 
such  a  brotherhood  of  nations  ought  not  to  mean  fusion 
of  nations.  Like  the  * '  J^ck  of  all  trades  *  *  the '  *  Jack  of  all 
nations"  is  too  superficial  in  his  acquaintance  with  any 
to  serve  it  (and  through  it,  all  of  us)  well. 

Very  rare  in  my  acquaintance  are  the  people  who  have 
changed  from  trade  to  trade  and  yet  succeeded  in  any. 
The  rolling  man  gathers  no  skill  because  he  is  not  faith- 
ful to  any  job  long  enough  to  learn  the  soul  of  it,  or  to 
get  its  best  rewards.  May  it  not  be  the  same  with  the 


244  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

"free  lover"?  While  attracted  to  one  mate,  he  per- 
ceives the  counter-attractions  of  others.  He  is  not 
narrow-minded.  He  recognizes  beauty  and  goodness 
everywhere  and  wishes  a  generous  share  of  both.  But 
precisely  similar  counter-attractions  offer  themselves 
to  every  man  who  has  set  himself  to  do  a  piece  of  work. 
The  other  man's  job,  like  the  other  man's  wife,  often 
looks  more  attractive  than  his  own.  Few  men  stick  to 
their  work  because  they  are  perpetually  in  love  with 
it  and  never  in  love  with  any  other.  They  stick  to  it 
because  they  have  learned  to  believe  that  nobody  ac- 
complishes anything  unless  he  binds  himself  to  resist 
his  momentary  impulses  and  to  learn  one  trade  as 
thoroughly  as  he  can.  Moreover  the  best  rewards  of 
work,  financial  and  personal,  usually  come  late.  To 
leave  one  job  for  another  usually  means  to  leave  it 
before  we  have  got  the  best  of  it  or  given  it  our  best 
service. 

To  go  from  city  to  city  within  one's  country  is  prob- 
ably commoner  in  America  than  elsewhere,  and  no 
one  deprecates  changes  made  before  we  have  chosen  a 
place  to  live.  The  preliminary  survey  of  many  places, 
if  one  can  afford  it,  is  as  wise  as  it  is  to  see  many  possi- 
ble mates  before  one  marries.  But  when  the  choice  of  a 
place  to  live  has  once  been  made,  every  one  regards  it 
as  an  evil,  though  perhaps  a  necessary  evil,  to  move 
away. 

These  choices  —  of  country,  residence  or  job  (or 
mate)  —  are  usually  exclusive.  In  taking  one  we  reject 


MARRIAGE  245 

many,  and  often  find  the  rejection  very  painful.  Like  a 
polygamist  we  want  to  grasp  several  of  the  alternatives 
offered.  But  we  have  learned  the  necessity  of  sacrifice, 
not  only  for  moral  reasons,  but  from  pure  prudence. 
If  we  try  for  several,  we  lose  all.  Moreover,  most  of 
these  choices,  since  they  are  final,  involve  not  only 
exclusiveness  and  sacrifice  at  the  start,  but  devotion 
all  the  way  along.  No  man  likes  his  business  every 
day:  sometimes  he  loathes  it;  yet  he  knows  that  to 
throw  it  up  and  try  another,  or  to  drift  about,  would  be 
crazy.  He  learns  to  disregard  or  to  crush  his  impulses 
of  repulsion  for  his  job.  He  must  "make  good"  in  it 
whether  he  feels  like  it  or  not. 

All  this  we  Americans  have  learned  in  business  be- 
cause work  is  the  thing  we  have  learned  best.  But  in 
love  a  wave  of  indifference  or  dislike  is  taken  very  seri- 
ously, perhaps  interpreted  to  mean  "time  for  divorce" 
or  "right  to  be  unfaithful.'*  We  are  foolish  enough  to  ex- 
pect constancy  of  feeling  in  love,  though  we  know  that 
in  everything  else  our  feelings  vary  like  the  weather. 

One  reason  for  greater  stupidity  in  affection  than  in 
business  is  this.  You  have  one  business  and  not  (as  a 
rule)  a  dozen  near-businesses  besides.  But  though  you 
have  rightly  but  one  mate,  you  have  many  friends  of 
her  sex.  A  close  parallel  to  the  difficulties  thus  sug- 
gested and  to  the  right  solution  of  them  is  to  be  found 
in  painting.  The  landscape  artist  does  not  welcome  to 
his  canvas  all  the  beauties  that  he  sees  and  loves  as  he 
sits  down  to  sketch.   The  laws  of  his  art  force  him  not 


( 


246  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

only  to  reject  much  that  fascinates  him,  but  to  choose 
one  point  of  delight  for  the  focus  of  his  picture  and  sub- 
ordinate all  else.  It  is  torture  sometimes  for  the  ama- 
teur, this  enforced  sacrifice  of  rival  beauties,  all  of  them 
desired.  But  the  sacrifice  (unlike  that  of  monogamy)  is 
enforced  by  no  convention,  by  no  law  of  State  or  of 
religion,  but  only  by  the  nature  of  his  own  original 
choice.  If  he  tries  to  combine  all  that  attracts  him  he 
will  do  justice  to  nothing.  When  he  chooses  a  subject, 
he  pledges  himself  to  one  interest,  forsaking  all  others ; 
but  unless  he  is  a  saint  or  a  simpleton  he  is  tempted 
a  hundred  times,  while  he  paints,  to  combine  rival 
beauties,  loved  but  incompatible.  Why  incompatible? 
Because  his  picture,  like  his  life,  must  contain  a  center 
of  interest,  a  graded  scale  of  values  and  of  devotion. 
Without  that  center  it  falls  to  pieces. 

So  in  our  human  relationships,  whether  religion,  law, 
and  custom  say  so  or  not,  each  of  us  must  try  to  estab- 
lish a  center.  Our  faithfulness  to  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances must  be  subordinate  to  one  primal  loyalty,  and 
what  is  owed  and  received  in  that  primal  loyalty  must 
decide  what  can  be  given  to  others  in  the  same  field. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  many  other  fields  of  life  we 
have  convincing  proof  of  the  principle  on  which  monog- 
amy rests.  In  science,  in  art,  in  practical  affairs,  in 
patriotism  we  habitually  select  a  single  interest  to 
which  all  else  then  becomes  secondary.  Would  it  not 
be  strange,  then,  if  there  were  no  need  to  establish  by 
marriage  such  a  center? 


MARRIAGE  247 

A  plausible  attack  may  be  made  on  monogamy  by 
picturing  it  as  slavery.  If  monogamy  is  inviolate,  one 
person  seems  to  some  extent  to  own  another.  In  this 
twentieth  century  and  in  a  land  of  freedom  are  we  to 
admit  property  in  persons?  Certainly.  All  loyalty  is 
binding  as  well  as  enfranchising.  It  is  voluntary  sur- 
render of  one's  freedom  in  the  service  of  a  cause.  Our 
country  owns  us  enough  to  punish  us  for  treason  if  we 
are  unfaithful  to  our  citizenship.  Any  one  who  binds 
himself  legally  or  morally  to  a  business,  a  college,  or  a 
science  is  in  some  respect  owned.  Nothing  is  less  free 
than  art  or  thought  or  love.  E^ch  undertakes  to  con- 
struct something  which  needs  time,  perhaps  eternity, 
to  complete  it.  Each  is  going  somewhere,  and  is  bound, 
therefore,  upon  its  journey.  That  journey,  that  desire, 
which  is  the  kernel  of  individuality,  certainly  limits 
freedom,  but  it  does  not  in  any  proper  sense  enslave. 
It  is  not  slavery  to  bind  one's  self  to  fidelity  because 
one  wants  something  supremely. 

In  support  of  these  reasons  for  partial  ownership  of 
one  person  by  another  and  for  such  surrender  of  free- 
dom as  is  implied  in  loyalty  to  the  marriage  vow,  con- 
sider this :  Whatever  other  basis  there  may  be  for  pri- 
vate ownership  of  land,  tools,  or  persons,  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  the  labor  which  a  person  puts  into  any- 
thing gives  him  some  right  to  it.  A  stethoscope  that  I 
have  long  used  fits  my  ear  and  trains  my  ear  until  the 
two  belong  together;  no  one  else  can  use  that  tool  or 
serve  the  community  as  well  with  it  as  I  can.   Hence 


248  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

the  community  is  interested  that  a  durable  bond  be- 
tween me  and  my  tool  should  be  established.  Only 
long  practice  brings  swift,  skillful,  and  economic  use 
of  anything.  In  short  periods  a  man  and  his  tool  can- 
not grow  to  fit  each  other.  It  pays,  then,  to  let  the 
workman  keep  his  own  tool  (as  he  probably  prefers  to 
do)  and  not  to  share  it  impartially  with  others.  It  shall 
belong  to  him  because  he  can  probably  do  better  work 
with  it  than  any  one  else  can. 

An  unfinished  manuscript  or  picture  naturally  be- 
longs to  him  who  began  it,  because  he  can  probably 
bring  more  value  out  of  it  than  any  one  else.  One  need 
not  insist  that  no  one  else  could  have  done  better  with 
the  subject  had  he  started  independently  to  bring  out 
all  that  was  in  it.  One  need  not  insist  that  all  mar- 
riages are  made  in  heaven  and  could  not  have  been 
better  arranged.  But  is  there  not  every  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  in  marriage,  as  in  work,  it  generally  pays  for 
partners  to  stay  together  and  finish  the  structure  of 
family  life  which  they  have  started?  Each  has  begun 
to  bring  something  out  of  the  other.  Each  has  become 
used  to  the  other,  more  or  less,  as  tool  and  hand,  writer 
and  subject,  are  constantly  shaping  each  other.  As 
time  goes  on,  husband  and  wife  each  acquire  a  hold 
upon  the  other  like  that  of  the  musician  and  his  violin. 
Each  stimulates  the  other,  now  and  then  at  least,  to 
his  best  work,  his  best  citizenship,  his  greatest  happi- 
ness.  Outsiders  can  rarely  do  so  much. 

Beyond  the  field  of  personal  relations  there  may  be 


MARRIAGE  249 

still  more  fundamental  loyalties  which  call  one  away 
from  wife,  from  friends,  and  acquaintances  alike.  At  the 
call  of  the  country  we  rightly  interrupt  all  personal 
relations.  At  the  call  of  science  and  humanity  it  may 
be  any  one's  duty  to  give  up  his  life  as  uncounted  Amer- 
ican physicians  have  given  theirs.  The  call  of  con- 
science or  of  God  may  be  so  clear  that  a  man  may 
rightly  leave  wife,  friends,  country,  and  bury  himself 
in  a  hermitage  or  in  study  that  is  without  any  known 
human  benefit. 

These  are  rare  calls,  and  partly  because  of  this  rarity 
they  may  bring  grievous  conflict  of  one  loyalty  against 
another.  But  when  the  final  choice  is  made,  it  involves 
none  of  that  disloyalty  which  monogamy  forbids.  * '  For- 
saking all  others**  does  not  mean  ignoring  country, 
science,  art,  or  God.  It  means  that  as  long  as  we  are 
loyal  to  personal  claims  at  all,  —  as  long  as  there  is  no 
call  to  give  up  all  persons  (including,'it  maybe,  our  own) 
for  a  supra-personal  good,  —  one  must  keep  a  central 
primacy  and  privacy. 

Within  the  field  of  personal  relations  one  should 
be  loyal  to  each  of  one's  subordinate  ties,  to  friend, 
business  associate,  official  superior  or  inferior,  mere 
acquaintance,  each  after  his  kind.  The  artist  may  need 
as  moich  delicacy  of  touch  to  deal  with  a  subdued 
accessory  in  his  picture  as  to  finish  its  focal  center. 
Each  of  the  less  intimate  personal  relations  is  likewise 
a  fine  art  in  itself.  None  can  be  confusedly  mistaken 
or  mistreated  for  any  other  without  harm. 


250  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

I  do  not  say  that  married  people  should  belong  to  each 
other  only  so  long  as  they  bring  out  each  other's  best. 
The  fundamental  reason  for  continuity  in  marriage  is 
not  this  mutual  inspiration.  It  is  the  need  of  a  prim- 
acy among  our  affections  of  various  degrees.  But  when 
for  this  and  other  reasons  people  persevere  in  marriage 
despite  many  temptations  to  break  away  from  it, 
they  often  reap  in  later  life  a  harvest  of  mutual  re- 
sponsiveness which  only  years  can  bring  to  maturity. 
Some  of  the  best  traits  of  marriage,  —  the  subtle  under- 
standing of  what  need  not  be  spoken,  the  instinctive 
habit  of  filling  in  one  another's  deficiencies  or  antici- 
pating one  another's  needs,  —  these  never  have  time 
to  develop  unless  man  and  wife  resist  some  of  the  storms 
and  shocks  of  their  earlier  years. 

It  is  fashionable  nowadays  to  talk  of  marriage  as  a 
contract  between  husband  and  wife.  This  is  something 
like  calling  violin-music  a  contact  between  fiddle  and 
bow.  It  is  not  untrue;  it  is  merely  foolish.  There  is  a 
contract  in  marriage  and  there  is  a  contact  between  bow 
and  strings.  But  there  is  so  much  else  that  no  one  in 
his  senses  should  pick  out  this  subordinate  element  to 
characterize  the  whole. 

What  sort  of  contract  Is  marriage?  How  does  it 
differ  from  a  contract  between  a  housebuilder  and  a 
(prospective)  householder?  First  of  all  in  this:  Con- 
tracting parties  are  not  usually  drawn  together  by  any 
mysterious  and  elemental  attraction.    Employer  and 


MARRIAGE  251 

employee  exert,  as  a  rule,  no  subtle  fascination  on  each 
other.  Their  differences  have  to  be  adjusted,  while  the 
differences  of  married  people  are  often  their  most  effec- 
tive bond.  Give  the  complementary  differences  of  sex 
a  chance  and  they  will  work  for  each  other's  benefil 
without  pay,  without  effort  and  even  without  capacity. 
In  marriage,  when  mind  and  conscience  sleep,  our  sub- 
conscious elemental  energies  may  be  busily  serving 
the  common  good,  despite  our  ineptitudes  and  even 
despite  our  sins.  Of  course  this  is  not  the  whole  truth. 
No  matter  how  devotedly  a  man  is  attached  to  his 
wife,  he  does  not  want  to  be  fastened  to  her  beauty, 
any  more  than  to  her  apron-strings.  He  wants  to  be 
rationally  as  well  as  magically  linked  to  her.  He  wants 
to  be  led  by  her  experience  and  her  nobility  as  well  as 
by  charm.  It  is  good  to  be  thus  linked  by  bonds  of 
many  colors,  as  we  are  in  marriage,  rather  than  by  one 
dull  instrument,  a  contract. 

For  the  many-sidedness  of  marriage  gives  it  strength. 
Even  two  interests  shared  throw  light  on  each  other 
and  on  those  who  share  them.  Each  reflects  and  multi- 
plies all,  like  a  group  of  mirrors.  Married  people  share, 
as  a  rule,  more  and  more  diverse  interests  with  each 
other  than  with  any  one  else.  Houses,  children,  sorrows, 
relations  (poor  and  not  so  poor),  finances,  reputations, 
meals,  beds,  opinions,  prejudices,  sickness  and  health, 
—  who  but  mates  can  share  so  many  and  so  richly 
varied  realities?  Who  else  has  the  chance  to  realize 
with  soul  and  with  sense  how  each  reenforces  the  rest? 


252  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Contrast  with  the  many-stranded  union  of  marriage 
the  feeble  bond  that  holds  two  philosophers  met  in 
argument.  With  only  their  professional  studies  to  join 
them,  is  it  any  wonder  that  they  so  rarely  convince  each 
other?  If  philosophers  were  really  serious  in  their  desire 
to  comprehend  each  other,  they  would  live  together, 
cook,  eat,  and  sleep  together  like  pioneers,  share  their 
gawky  pre-philosophic  past  with  each  other,  plan  some 
romantic,  some  strikingly  extra-philosophic  adventure 
together,  study  each  other's  behavior  in  money  matters, 
love-affairs,  games,  and  family  tiffs.  It  would  take 
time —  just  as  marriage  does ;  it  would  try  each  of  them 
sorely  —  as  marriage  does ;  but  it  might  well  bring  to 
them  and  to  their  opinions  some  fraction  of  the  mutual 
conversion,  the  mutual  enlightenment,  intimacy,  and 
esteem  that  bless  marriage. 

Any  one  who  wishes  to  strengthen  his  basis  of  agree- 
ment with  another,  to  appropriate  all  he  can  of  an- 
other's greatness  or  to  communicate  his  most  cher- 
ished aspirations,  must,  I  believe,  do  what  he  can  to 
ape  and  copy  marriage,  humbly  imitating  the  con- 
ditions it  so  richly  furnishes  for  all  these  supreme 
achievements.  It  is  because  employer  and  employee, 
radical  and  conservative,  plaintiff  and  defendant,  are 
in  contact  at  so  few  points,  share  so  few  of  the  benefits 
of  long  and  close  association,  —  are,  in  short,  so  be- 
reft of  the  trials  and  blessings  of  marriage,  —  that  they 
waste  so  much  vigor  in  fighting  each  other. 


MARRIAGE  253 

Theoretically  our  form  of  government  ought  to  make 
us  experts  in  marriage ;  for  we  are  supposedly  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  in  union  there  is  strength.  But  in 
fact  we  shall  learn  more  of  what  the  national  unity-in- 
variety  should  be,  by  recalling  how  in  marriage,  sorrows 
explain  and  justify  creeds,  how  children  and  other  re- 
sponsibilities explain  expenditures,  how  children  and 
other  miracles  teach  tolerance,  how  words  are  inter- 
preted by  personal  history,  and  hands  grow  beautiful 
in  their  remembered  use. 

Of  course  I  have  not  done  justice  to  the  richness  of 
the  marriage  union:  only  music  gives  me  the  parallel 
that  I  need.  There,  the  interweaving  strands  of  mel- 
ody and  harmony — each  carrying  its  own  spirit  and 
meaning,  each  modifying  and  enriching  the  rest,  all 
blended  in  the  current  of  a  single  utterance  —  seem 
to  me  the  fittest  of  images  to  suggest  the  interweav- 
ing and  reenforcing  of  interests  in  marriage.  Not  a 
note  in  the  chord  or  a  phrase  in  the  melody  is  itself 
without  the  rest.  United  they  stand  and  give  life 
each  to  each.  Divided  they  fall  and  scatter  like  seeds, 
until  some  one  plants  them  once  more  in  fruitful 
company. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  blessing  in  marriage  is  that  it 
lasts  so  long.  The  years,  like  the  varying  interests  of 
each  year,  combine  to  buttress  and  enrich  each  other. 
Out  of  many  shared  years,  one  life.  In  a  series  of  tem- 
porary relationships,  one  misses  the  ripening,  gathering, 
harvesting  joys,  the  deep,  hard-won  truths  of  marriage. 


254  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

The  unmarried  can  rarely  follow  so  many  strands  of 
interest  at  once.  They  share  food  with  one  friend, 
work  with  another,  play  with  a  third,  travel  with  L 
fourth,  failure  with  a  fifth,  quarrels  with  a  sixth.  But 
with  no  human  being  can  they  share  the  light  shed  by 
each  of  these  experiences  on  all  the  rest. 

The  ripening  of  money  by  compound  interest  is  slow 
and  feeble  compared  to  the  ripening  of  compounded 
interests  in  married  life.  God  forbid  that  I  should  be- 
little the  sacredness  of  first  love  because  I  hold  just 
now  a  brief  for  enduring  marriage.  But  there  is  fas- 
cination in  familiarity  as  well  as  in  the  first  glimpse  of 
a  new  world.  A  love  that  can  remember  its  own  develop- 
ment, can  look  down  the  lengthening  vista  of  its  ad- 
venturous past  and  project  its  future,  has  perhaps  less 
quivering  intensity  but  surely  more  volume  and  rich- 
ness than  its  opening  days  could  possess.  Such  elastic 
strength  comes  only  with  time.  Early  love  may  be 
incomparable  in  its  creative  brilliance,  but  in  maturer 
love  we  win  the  fruits  of  security. 

I  know  well  that  this  very  security  may  be  base  and 
slack.  People  may  become  so  sleepily  content  with 
their  marriage  that  they  cease  to  care  much  about  any- 
thing, even  about  each  other.  But  there  is  another 
security  that  is  not  base ;  I  mean  the  reliance  on  one's 
footing  that  nerves  one  to  a  bold  leap,  the  firm  founda- 
tion which  gives  time  to  think  and  plan,  opportunity 
to  serve,  to  appreciate,  and  to  grow.  Even  business 
needs  some  security  if  it  is  to  get  in  motion  at  all.  Even 


MARRIAGE  255 

the  bomb-thrower  must  be  relatively  safe  while  he  pre- 
pares and  throws  his  bomb. 

Not  tamely  .secure  are  the  blessings  and  fruits  of 
marriage.  They  must  be  rewon  again  and  again.  But 
well-grounded  reliance  on  our  right  to  try  for  them, 
and  on  our  hope  of  rewinning  them  as  often  as  we  sin- 
cerely try,  —  that  we  surely  need  and  find  in  mar- 
riage. 

All  security  ties  some  future's  hands  in  order  that 
we  may  risk  something  else.  Fortified  by  good  health, 
one  may  risk  money;  buttressed  by  money  one  may 
perhaps  risk  health.  In  marriage,  the  security  ordi- 
narily attained  is  this:  there  is  some  one  who  forgives 
us  more  often  and  more  freely  than  the  unmarried  can 
expect;  some  one  who  makes  God's  infinite  forgiveness 
more  credible.  There  is  some  one  who  loves  us  long 
after  we  have  forfeited  any  natural  right  to  be  loved 
and  long  before  we  have  won  any.  Supernatural  in  this 
sense  marriage  almost  always  is;  thus  it  prepares  and 
enfranchises  us  for  religion. 

In  the  forefront  of  my  tribute  to  marriage  I  have  put 
forgiveness,  because  I  know  nothing  that  we  need  more. 
We  need  it  not  merely  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  dis- 
couragement, but  to  stir  us  out  of  the  apathy  of  habit. 
Fresh  impulse  to  our  work,  fresh  heart  for  the  imperson- 
ations which  every  art  and  every  game  presuppose,  new 
love  of  life  and  its  author,  —  such  are  the  issues  of  for- 
giveness. Your  better  half  forgives  not  only  your  more 
obvious  sins,  but  your  awkwardness  (behind  which 


256  WHAT   MEN  LIVE  BY 

she  sees  some  grace  quite  hidden  to  other  mortals), 
your  foolishness,  your  dumbness,  your  blank  and  un- 
inspiring face.  Despite  all  these  drab  exteriors  she  sees 
something  worth  while  in  you,  and  because  she  sees  it 
she  helps  it  to  be  born. 

Forgiveness  is  to  the  spirit  what  home  is  to  the 
householder.  It  is  the  assurance  that  in  the  house  of 
the  spirit  some  one  waits  for  our  deed,  —  the  deed 
never  yet  done,  but  always  due.  That  expectation  is  a 
stronghold  to  which  we  return  at  night,  from  which  we 
carry  vigor  to  our  morning's  work.  Such  security  ener- 
vates only  when  it  no  longer  nettles  us  to  deserve 
it  and,  by  this  effort,  to  reestablish  it.  **Thy  face  a 
home,  a  flying  home  to  me, "  says  Chesterton  to  his 
wife.  There  is  no  ignoble  torpor  about  a  flying  home. 
Unless  we  make  shift  to  fly  a  bit  ourselves,  we  are  left 
behind. 

There  is  a  bracing  negative  aspect  to  the  marriage 
vow.  It  commits  us  more  or  less  irrevocably  to  forsake 
all  others.  It  cuts  off  the  freedom  to  act  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment.  Unmarried,  we  are  like  the  riderless 
horse  who  allows  only  for  his  own  height  when  he  ducks 
under  low  branches  in  the  forest.  In  marriage  we  must 
choose  our  path  more  carefully.  But  this  is  just  what 
the  vast  majority  of  us  need.  We  need  to  be  fenced 
into  a  narrower  field  than  of  ourselves  we  should  even 
find.  We  need  to  be  harnessed  and  given  a  bit  of  road 
to  cover.  In  the  end  we  put  out  more  power  and  win 
more  happiness  when  our  choice  is  thus  restricted  and 


MARRIAGE  257 

our  path  narrowed  by  a  promise,  given  and  taken. 
We  get  somewhere  because  we  are  no  longer  so  free  to 
change  our  course. 

Any  responsibility  gives  us  direction  and  continuity, 
but  marriage  brings  us  in  addition  some  of  the  choicest 
adventures  that  the  world  has  in  store.  Certain  of  these 
adventures,  or  tests,  every  modern  must  meet  and  con- 
quer, as  the  mediaeval  knight  met  the  enchanters  and 
dragons  of  the  forest.  If  he  misses  them,  he  will  slip 
out  of  life  like  a  boy  entering  college  heavily  condi- 
tioned. Can  you  remember?  Can  you  imagine?  Can 
you  be  a  good  winner,  a  game  loser?  Can  you  resist 
satiety?  Such  questions  form  part  of  the  examination 
which,  early  or  late,  every  one  must  take.  For  some  of 
these  questions  marriage  gives  us  the  best-known  prep- 
aration and  the  fairest  marking  system. 

Take  the  last  question  as  a  sample.  Can  you  resist 
satiety?  Only  by  miracle,  it  seems;  for  every  day  you 
and  all  of  us  pay  cool  insults  to  the  clouds,  the  trees, 
and  the  cities,  to  pictures  and  books,  to  fire,  rain,  and 
nightfall.  You  turn  upon  them  the  ignominy  of  your 
neglect  and  upon  yourself  that  ignominy  returns  a 
thousandfold.  With  shame  you  discover  that  the  pic- 
ture on  your  wall  is  practically  invisible  to  you  after 
the^first  few  months.  Just  with  the  tail  of  your  eye  you 
brush  across  its  surface  now  and  then.  Yet  it  has  done 
nothing  to  deserve  such  treatment.  It  has  not  degen- 
erated. It  is  you  who  have  degenerated,  your  color 
and  freshness  that  have  faded,  your  mental  structure 


258  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

that  has  collapsed.    Part  of  you  has  been  killed  to 
avenge  the  slur  you  cast  upon  an  artist's  child. 

Familiar  and  humiliating  enough,  —  this  defeat.  In 
everyday  life  we  have  almost  given  up  the  hope  of 
avoiding  it.  But  in  marriage  we  sight  a  better  chance  to 
win  at  least  partial  victory.  For  there,  the  well-nigh 
immovable  body  of  our  dullness  meets  an  awakening 
force  as  nearly  irresistible  as  any  that  human  life 
encounters.  There  the  test,  **Can  you  resist  satiety?** 
is  squarely  put  up  to  us  and  we  are  given  an  un- 
equaled  chance  to  win  a  victory  or  to  duck  under  to 
one  of  the  devil's  most  soul-destroying  blows.  Nothing 
in  creation  less  deserves  our  neglect  than  the  soul  and 
body  of  the  person  we  are  pledged  to  for  life.  Nothing 
has  so  good  a  chance  to  rouse  us  and  to  save  us.  Trees 
and  birds  speak  our  language  far  less  clearly.  If  they 
love  us  and  forgive  us,  they  are  usually  silent  about  it. 
When  they  serve  us  it  is  far  from  clear  that  they  were 
meant  so  to  serve.  If  they  summon  up  the  past  and  call 
in  the  future  to  refresh  and  to  defend  us,  we  are  none 
the  wiser.  But  the  one  soul  that  has  a  fair  chance  of 
saving  us  from  the  ignominious  death  of  satiety,  by 
warming  our  dull  life  with  greater  life,  is  the  faithful 
soul  called  our  better  half. 

Victory  here  gives  us  hope  of  victory  elsewhere.  In- 
asmuch as  we  learn  to  see  the  perpetual  novelty,  rest, 
and  charm  which  marriage  offers  to  all,  we  have  mas- 
tered one  stage  in  the  art  of  unsated  happiness  and  of 
unchecked  growth.   Successfully  married  people  have 


MARRIAGE  259 

more  news  to  tell  each  other  and  more  capacity  to  hear 
it  eagerly  than  any  less  closely,  less  durably  united 
couple  can  have.  The  habit  of  seeing  and  hearing  freshly 
can  be  acquired  in  marriage  if  anywhere,  and  once 
acquired  here,  it  may  be  gradually  extended  into  more 
difficult  regions. 

So  it  is  I  believe  with  most  of  the  other  tests  with 
which  the  world  invariably  confronts  us.  If  in  marriage 
a  man  cannot  learn  to  see  himself  as  others  see  him,  he 
will  probably  never  learn  it  at  all.  If  there  he  learns 
nothing  of  the  art  of  vicarious  living,  he  will  never  have 
again  in  all  human  probability  so  easy  and  inspiring  a 
teacher.  If  family  life  does  not  spur  him  so  to  envisage 
the  distant  and  the  future  that  he  expresses  himself 
and  controls  himself  somewhat  as  the  present  demands, 
he  is  apt  to  remain  a  donkey  to  the  end. 

So  far  I  have  written  mostly  of  strength  and  of  the 
trials  of  strength  in  marriage.  So  much  for  the  deep 
root  of  it.   Now  for  its  shoots  and  branches. 

Everybody  wants  to  be  understood  by  somebody ;  but 
in  the  natural  course  of  events  everybody  is  more  or 
less  misunderstood  or  distortedly  understood  by  most 
of  his  friends  and  acquaintances.  They  have  no  "call " 
to  pay  special  attention  to  him  and  are  rightly  engaged 
in  their  own  business.  In  heaven,  scripture  tells  us,  we 
shall  know  as  we  are  known,  wholly;  but  to  most  of 
us  this  perfect  knowledge  would  be  inconceivable  but 
for  the  glimpses  and  tastes  of  it  in  marriage.  Marriage 
gives  us  the  best  chance  in  sight  to  grasp  our  share  of 


26o  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

complete  mutual  comprehension.  I  believe  that  any 
benedict  among  us,  the  "  pick-and-shovel "  man,  the 
shipping-clerk,  the  plumber,  or  the  railroad  magnate, 
is  more  apt  to  be  understood  by  his  wife  than  by  any 
other  human  being.  The  bachelor  and  the  maid  (old 
or  young)  are  less  often  appreciated  with  that  ripe 
mixture  of  favoritism  and  keen  sight  which  the  married 
enjoy. 

Enjoy  it  they  certainly  do.  Almost  every  one  wants 
to  pour  out  his  joys,  his  troubles,  and  his  plans  to  some- 
one who  will  meet  him  halfway.  The  number  of  re- 
served people  dwindles  towards  zero  in  the  intricate 
understanding  of  marriage.  Most  of  them  were  re- 
served before  marriage  because  they  feared  to  be 
laughed  at,  quoted,  or  misunderstood.  There  remain  a 
few  who  can  never  quite  trust  themselves  and  their 
secrets  to  any  human  being.  They  become  monks  (or 
their  equivalent) ;  or  missing  that  outlet  are  apt  to  be- 
come dry  and  brackish.  An  outlet  for  free  expression 
IS  the  only  way  of  insuring  an  inlet, — an  intake  of  new 
power.  Friends  and  acquaintances  give  us  precious  bits 
of  their  confidence  and  their  attention,  but  except  for 
our  mate  there  is  seldom  any  one  who  cares  to  hear  all 
that  we  would  say  and  to  say  all  that  we  would  hear. 
Others  are  more  keenly  interested  elsewhere.  No  one 
else  has  so  good  a  reason  to  be  interested ;  no  one  else 
is  so  often  interested  (and  interesting)  beyond  reason. 

The  intimate  commingling  of  new  thoughts  and 
plans  too  fragile  and  tender  to  be  grasped  by  any  save 


MARRIAGE  261 

one,  is  as  intense  and  peculiar  a  joy  as  any  form  of 
union  can  give.  It  is  mutual  creation,  and  all  the  leap- 
ing wonder  and  holy  fear  of  creation  attend  it.  The 
"marriage  of  two  minds,'*  in  those  who  are  also  mar- 
ried in  every  other  sense,  is  full  of  adventure  and  the 
pioneer  spirit.  I  know  well  that  this  can  be  missed  in 
marriage.  But  where  else  can  it  be  so  often  found?  Its 
perfection  of  swift  give-and-take,  heightening  each 
personality  by  inflow  of  the  other,  is  equaled  perhaps 
when  two  musicians  in  some  miraculous  hour  make 
and  interpret  music  together.  But  it  is  only  in  the  oc- 
casional raptures  of  nascent  music  that  they  can  enjoy 
themselves  in  this  heaven-glimpsing  way,  while  hus- 
band and  wife  can  sound  each  year  the  chords  of  a 
myriad  newborn  thoughts. 

Wonderfully  close  to  the  most  sacred  purpose  of 
marriage  is  its  greatest  danger,  —  idolatry.  But  in  this 
respect  it  is  like  all  other  good  things.  From  marriage, 
as  from  every  great  gift,  we  are  meant  to  learn  some- 
thing greater,  something  more  vital  than  itself.  But  we 
may  miss  its  spirit  and  stick  fast  at  its  letter,  like  pupils 
who  fasten  upon  the  master's  fascinating  tricks  and 
foibles  instead  of  plodding  past  him  to  seek  from  God 
their  own  share  of  beauty  and  truth,  unshared  before. 
AIL  human  teachers  are  dangerous  but  necessary.  We 
are  tempted  to  depend  upon  them,  not  merely  at  the 
start,  but  so  permanently  that  they  pauperize  instead 
of  enriching  us.  Their  finite  stock  of  food  exhausted, 
we  starve.    By  the  same  fatal  error,  business  which 


262  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

should  be  our  symbol  becomes  our  life,  art  degenerates 
into  conventionality  and  marriage  love,  which  should 
acquaint  us  with  divinity,  is  worshiped  instead  for  its 
own  sake. 

Have  you  never  watched  the  debasement  of  a  beau- 
tiful voice  under  training?  Its  own  original  glimpse  of 
beauty  is  soon  lost  and  the  image  of  another's  manner- 
ism becomes  indelibly  fixed  on  it.  So  I  have  seen  people 
lose  their  religion  in  marriage.  The  great  teacher  spoils 
them,  because  they  have  failed  to  go  behind  his  teach- 
ing to  the  sources  of  his  wisdom.  Yet  some  such  teacher 
we  all  must  have.  We  may  avoid  the  idolatries  of  mar- 
riage only  by  exposing  ourselves  to  the  same  dangers 
in  some  other  form.  For,  married  or  single,  we  learn 
mainly  by  imitation. 

How,  then,  can  we  best  guard  ourselves  from  the 
dangers  besetting  every  attempt  to  appropriate  the 
blessings  of  a  great  teacher,  a  fascinating  symbol,  like 
marriage? 

The  chief  dangers  and  failures  of  which  we  must  take 
account  are  two:  idolatry  and  '' hifalutinism''  The 
idolatrous  marriage  is  slavishly  content  with  its  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  conveniences.  The  hifalutin  mar- 
riage is  a  bungling  of  sentimental  amateurs  who  will  not 
learn  their  technique,  who  try  to  play  the  game  without 
knowing  the  rules.  It  is  too  high  and  mighty  to  notice 
plain,  or  even  beautiful,  facts.  It  parallels  the  amateur 
artist's  attempt  to  enjoy  the  spirit  of  his  art  when 
he  has  never  mastered  its  materials  or  acquired  its 


MARRIAGE  263 

technique.  It  tries  to  loll  in  the  second-story  balcony 
of  love's  home  before  it  has  put  in  the  underpinning. 

All  that  I  can  say  of  the  defenses  against  idolatrous 
failure  I  have  already  said.  Of  the  hifalutin  I  have 
something  more  to  say.  I  have  insisted,  perhaps  too 
often,  on  the  need  of  piercing  through  the  letter  of  ex- 
perience to  its  spirit.  For  in  this  attempt  it  is  easy  to 
forget  that  what  we  want  is  the  spirit  of  this  letter  — 
precisely  this  letter  —  not  something  like  it.  If  we 
want  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  a  text,  the  first  es- 
sential is  to  catch  our  text,  and  to  read  it  word  by 
word.  Then  —  only  then  —  comes  the  leap  of  inter- 
pretation. 

One  can  miss  the  best  happiness  of  marriage  because 
one  travels  through  it  in  kid  gloves,  Pullman  cars, 
first-class  staterooms,  and  grand  hotels.  Rich,  city- 
bred,  voluntarily  childless,  one  can  mince  through  mar- 
riage as  sightseers  promenade  in  a  forest  on  a  graveled 
path  with  hand-rails,  signposts,  and  seats.  On  the  other 
hand,  one  may  know  marriage  as  Kipling's  Mowgli 
knew  the  forest,  because  he  traveled  as  well  in  the  tree- 
tops  as  on  the  springy  ground.  No  one  knows  a  tree 
unless  he  has  climbed  it,  tasted  its  bark,  felt  out  the 
spring  and  thrust  of  its  limbs  with  pencil  on  paper,  cut 
into  it  with  an  axe,  clung  to  high  branches  in  a  rain- 
storm, as  John  Muir  did  in  the  High  Sierras,  studied 
minutely  its  cells,  its  osmotic  currents  and  tropisms. 
After  such  knowledge  of  a  tree  one  is  fit  to  treat  it  as  a 
symbol,  not  before.  So  it  is  in  marriage.   Knowledge 


264  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

and  skill  should  precede  as  well  as  follow  that  vision 
without  which  we  perish. 

In  the  chapter  on  "The  Glory  of  Raw  Material" 
and  in  the  paragraphs  on  the  good  loser,  I  tried  to 
acknowledge  my  reverence  for  the  hard,  raw  surface 
of  things  because  it  is  through  just  this  surface,  out  of 
just  this  unique  tang  of  crudeness,  that  a  true  vision  of 
deeper  meaning,  wider  truth,  richer  happiness  is  to 
come.  Horror  of  the  lapdog  view  of  life,  —  fear  of  the 
amateur's  bungling  vagaries,  recoil  from  the  lie  of  con- 
ventional piety  and  chromo-colored  enthusiasm,  brings 
me  back  to  the  same  theme  as  I  try  to  base  the  idealism 
of  marriage  broad  on  the  roots  of  things. 

Marriage,  then,  as  a  great  teacher  and  symbol,  bids 
us,  first  of  all,  study  the  facts,  learn  our  technique 
faithfully,  and  play  the  game  for  all  it  is  worth,  with  no 
shirking  of  its  hard  knocks,  no  fatuous  assumption  that 
we  know  it  before  we  have  learned  it,  no  quailing  be- 
fore the  twin  giants,  — Success  and  Failure, — who  are 
to  be  enemies  or  friends  as  we  shall  decide.  We  follow 
the  game  wherever  it  leads.  Good  winners  and  good 
losers  we  are  schooled  to  become,  in  marriage  as  in 
sport.  Then  from  the  springboard  of  reality  and  skill 
comes  the  leap  of  faith.  "Thy  God  shall  be  my  God." 
We  say  to  the  beauties  and  puzzles  of  marriage  as  Ruth 
said  to  Naomi  and  as  the  Christian  says  to  Jesus; 
"Where  thou  goest  I  will  go."  What  thou  teachest  I 
will  learn. 


FART  IV:  WORSHIP 


CHAPTER  XXX 

SPIRITUAL  FATIGUE:   MOUNTAIN-TOP  VIEWS 

It  is  a  favorite  trick  with  those  who  pretend  to  read 
the  palm  or  the  handwriting  to  say,  with  special  em- 
phasis and  secrecy  to  eacn  customer:  *'  I  can  see  in  your 
hand  that  the  deepest  and  best  of  you  has  never  yet 
found  expression.  Half  unconsciously  you  are  repress- 
ing a  flood  of  power  which  pushes  ever  for  freedom. 
To  set  it  free  will  be  the  deepest  joy  of  your  life." 

The  beauty  of  this  ever-successful  trick  is  that  what 
the  sharper  pretends  to  discover  in  this  individual,  he 
knows  to  be  true  of  every  living  being.  We  are  pite- 
ously  unexpressed.  We  differ  only  in  the  means  that 
can  set  us  free.  How  many  in  whom  we  least  suspect 
it  are  longing  to  sing,  — not  to  interpret  a  genteel  mel- 
ody, but  to  let  themselves  out  in  song!  The  efforts 
expended  in  business,  in  sport,  and  even  in  affection 
seem  comparatively  impersonal  and  indirect.  They  do 
not  free  the  breast,  they  do  not  tell  the  tale. 

How  many  in  whom  we  least  suspect  it  are  longing 
to  pray !  How  many  who  hardly  suspect  it  themselves  L 
I  believe  that  the  craving  to  sing  is  but  a  partial  and  i 
imperfect  image  of  the  craving  to  pray.   What  song' 
is  to  prosy  speech,  that  prayer  is  to  song.    It  is  the 
supremely   personal  and  direct  utterance  for  which 
creation  longs,  for  which  hard  toil  prepares. 


268  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

Yet  worship  is  out  of  fashion.  The  average  man 
thinks  of  it  as  something  mediaeval  or  obsolete.  He  may 
excuse  it  like  any  other  fondness  for  what  is  old- 
fashioned  ;  he  may  find  it  interesting,  amusing,  even 
endearing,  in  those  who  throw  themselves  into  it  sin- 
cerely. But  in  any  case  he  looks  on  at  it  as  a  spectator; 
it  is  not  for  him. 

This  is  not  horrifying  or  even  surprising  to  one  who 
believes,  as  I  do,  that  worship  is  a  permanent  and  neces- 
sary privilege  of  the  human  spirit.  There  are  plenty 
of  loafers  and  drudges  who  never  learn  to  work,  plenty 
of  workers  who  cannot  play,  and  whole  nationsful  of 
people  who  have  only  the  most  elementary  acquain- 
tance with  love.  A  vital  organ  of  the  soul  sickens  and 
shrivels;  yet  the  person  survives  in  some  sort  through 
the  marvelous  compensatory  readjustments  uncon- 
sciously wrought  out  within  him. 

More  serious  than  dropping  prayer  altogether  out  of 
sight  is  the  tendency  to  dilute  it  by  bland  and  innoc- 
uous additions  which  make  it  more  acceptable  to  the 
fastidious,  but  less  nutritious.  Thus  Du  Maurier  tries 
to  make  us  think  that  we  are  all  more  worshipful  than 
we  had  supposed:  —  "Trilby  sang  a  song  of  B6- 
ranger's  and  I'Endormi  said :  '  Cest  egal,  voyez-vous, 
to  sing  like  that  is  to  pray  and  thinking  is  praying  very 
often  (don't  you  think  so?),  and  so  is  being  ashamed 
when  one  has  done  a  mean  thing,  and  grateful  when  it 
is  a  fine  day.  What  is  it  but  praying  when  you  try  to 
keep  up  after  losing  all  you  care  for,  and  a  very 


THE  APPROACH  TO  JPRAYER         269 

good  praying,  tooPCErayers  without  words  are  the 
best.'" 

"Yes,"  one  might  add,  "and  so  are  poems  without 
words,  and  music  without  notes,  and  landscape  with- 
out color  or  modeling,  and  life  without/ mnscipusi 
Doubtless  the  acts  wliich  Du  Maurier  so  cheermgly 


puts  forward  as  prayer  are  steps,  perhaps  long  steps, 
in  the  right  direction.  They  may  prepare  us  .as  kneel- 
ing and  other  symbolic  acts  prepare  us  for  ^^ayer.  But 
we  must  demand  mbre  of  ourselves,  because  our  deeper 
selves  demand  more  of  us.  Emerson^  asserts  that 
"  The  prayer  of  the  farmer  kneeling  in  his  field  to  weed 
it,  the  prayer  of  the  rower  kneeling  with  the  stroke  of 
his  oar,  are  true  prayers,  heard  throughout  nature, 
though  for  cheap  ends."    I  doubt  it. 

The  farmer  may  have  been  cursing  the  weeds.  Yet 
his  kneeling  and  Trilby's  singing  might  well  have  been 
preparation  for  prayer.  We  must  recognize  the  value 
of  symbolic  and  habitual  acts  like  kneeling.  Physical 
attitudes  help  us  to  think  and  to  feel  as  well  as  to  pray. 
When  we  want  to  concentrate  our  thoughts  we  relax 
the  larger  muscles  and  fix  the  eye.  Emotion  has  also 
its  physical  symbols  and  accelerators,  all  the  more 
useful  because  habit  links  them  up  with  the  emotion 
they  last  accompanied. 

There  is  nothing  more  ceremonious  and  super- 
stitious about  kneeling  and  closing  the  eyes  before 
prayer  than  there  is  about  lying  down  to  promote  sleep. 

*  In  his  essay  on  "  Self -Reliance." 


270  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

In  both  cases  the  action  initiates  and  promotes  the 
state  of  ^  mind  which  we  desire,  especially  when  habit 
and  association  reenforce  the  connection.  We  need  such 
tfv^^^y  symbols  just  as  we  need  the  symbols  called  "words" 
L_pr  "atoms."  However  dry  and  meaningless  in  them- 
selves they  yet  preserve  and  clarify  the  meaning  which 
we  give  them.  The  fact  that  worship  surrounds  itself 
with  beauty,  with  symbols,  symbolic  acts  and  rites, 
means  simply  that  it  is  sensible  and  well-planned  like 
baseball  or  business.  For  athletics  and  commerce  have 
their  own  symbols  which  every  one  uses  as  a  matter  of 
course.  We  modems  are  indifferent  or  averse  to  wor- 
ship, not  because  it  employs  ceremonies  and  symbols, 
but  largely  because  of  our  clumsy  shyness  in  the  use  of 
this  particular  set. 


But  though  many  of  us  are  now  adrift  and  far  from 
/  the  land  of  worship,  the  shores  of  that  great  conti- 
nent are  vast  and  deep-cut  and  the  wind  of  the  spirit 
j    blows  perpetually  toward  them.  We  may  not  land  and 
1   explore,  but  we  can  never  tack  very  far  from  shore. 
To-day  we  veer  away  from  some  jutting  cape,  but  to- 
morrow we  wake  to  find  ourselves  in  the  shadow  of 
some  deep  fiord,  or  catch  a  glimpse  of  snow-capped 
peaks  as  the  land-fog  lifts.    Whenever  beauty  over- 
^  whelms  us,  whenever  wonder  silences  our  chattering 
hopes  and  worries,  we  are  close  to  worship.  Dumb  im- 
pulses toward  it  haunt  us  in  the  pause  before  battle. 
To  follow  thought  nearer  and  nearer  home  in  lingering 


THE  APPROACH   TO  PRAYER         271 

meditation  is  to  grope  for  God.  The  deep  joy  of  mutual 
love  or  parenthood,  the  decisive  victory  of  the  right 
in  national  life  or  in  ourselves,  brings  us  that  wistful, 
wondering  pause,  that  ** orbed  solitude"  which  is  close 
to  prayer. 

So,  unless  we  are  blind  to  beauty,  deaf  to  the  call 
lof  righteous  battle,  incapable  of  prolonged  reflection, 
fa  stranger  to  the  poignancies  of  joy  and  sorrow,  in- 
capable of  wonder,  we  are  in  perpetual  danger  of  falling 
into  worship  as  the  tired  mortal  falls  asleep. 

Worship  renews  the  spirit  as  sleep  renews  the  body.^ 
Our  souls  as  well  as  our  bodies  get  drained,  now  and 
again,  of  available  energy.  We  "go  stale"  as  Hamlet 
did,  and  to  our  jaundiced  view  the  world  too  becomes 
"stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable,"  or  "sicklied  o'er  with 
the  pale  cast"  of  our  own  low-grade  cerebration.  This 
is  not  always  the  result  of  physical  fatigue ;  for  people 
who  never  did  a  stroke  of  work  in  their  lives  are  as 
prone  as  any  to  the  symptoms  of  spiritual  fatigue. 

Those  symptoms  consist  for  the  most  part  of  "stale- 
ness  "  in  various  forms.  They  may  be  acute,  chronic,  or 
recurrent.  In  the  normal  growing  man  they  return 
with  each  cycle  of  his  growth  and  could  be  traced  in  his 
soul  like  the  rings  of  a  severed  tree-trunk.  The  tired 
spirit  finds  a  waning  interest  in  familiar  tasks;  even 

*  Throughout  these  chapters  on  Worship  I  have  borrowed  freely  from 
Professor  W.  E.  Hocking's  book,  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Ex- 
perience.    Yale  University  Press,  191 2. 


272  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

contempt  may  be  bred  by  this  ingrowing  familiarity. 
What  *s  the  use?  What  is  it  all  for?  we  ask  ourselves. 
Minor  waves  of  spiritual  fatigue,  daily,  weekly,  or 
monthly,  are  often  dully  borne  because  custom  has 
mistaught  us  to  assume  that  all  novelty  must  wear 
off,  that  familiarity  necessarily  blunts  the  keenness  of 
appreciation,  and  that  no  love  can  last  forever.  The 
appetite  for  life,  the  zest  and  pleasure  in  recreation  de- 
cline or  disappear.  In  the  acute  and  extreme  cases  a 
positive  nausea  of  existence  may  seize  us. 

Moreover,  spiritual  fatigue  shows  itself  in  loss  of 
power  as  well  as  in  a  lack  of  feeling  for  life.  We  see 
neither  straight  nor  far.  We  magnify  trifles  and  ignore 
the  universe.  We  pin  our  faith  on  the  success  of  a  party. 
We  expect  mathematically  exact  justice  for  our  deserts. 
We  cling  to  the  letter  of  the  law  and  demand  our 
pound  of  flesh.  We  exaggerate  the  purity  of  our  own 
motives  and  the  impurity  of  others.  Like  a  tired  body 
heading  for  the  elevator,  we  drift  into  thought-sparing 
devices,  such  as  physical  explanations  of  crime  or 
economic  conceptions  of  history.  We  demand  quick 
returns  on  every  expenditure  of  love  or  labor.  The 
gambling  habit,  the  cynical  spirit,  incredulity  of 
goodness,  timidity  before  new  action,  restless  craving 
for  new  sen^tion,  betray  that  irritable  weakness  which 
is  characteristic  of  fatigue  in  the  spirit  as  in  the  body. 

This  suffering  and  impotence  are  natural  enough 
because  the  efforts  of  work,  the  cramped  application 
that  is  symbolized  by  bending  over  a  desk  and  confining 


THE  APPROACH  TO  PRAYER         273 

the  attention  to  a  single  point  "provide  for  their  own 
arrest,"  as  Professor  W.  E.  Hocking  has  so  beautifully 
shown.  As  the  growth  of  a  colony  of  bacteria  is  checked 
by  the  chemical  products  of  its  own  way  of  living,  as 
there  is  something  in  the  very  nature  of  work  that  calls 
(through  fatigue)  for  rest,  so  there  is  that  in  all  Godless 
living  which  tends  to  draw  us  (through  the^ain  aud_ 
paralysis  of  spiritual  fatigue)  back  to  God .U' Worship   / 
is  the  self-conscious^part  of  th^,jiatural  recovery  of 
value"  in  life,  when  it  has  grown  stale.    For  worship  1 
is  the  conscious  love  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  and  ,' 
we  need  it  regularly:  like  food  orsleep. 

We  need  it  to  cure  us  of  absorption  in  the  fragment) — 
to  free  it  of  lonely  isolation.  All  good  work  implies 
concentration  on  detail,  and  all  such  concentration 
involves  temporary  blindness,  like  that  of  the  unused 
eye  of  the  microscopist,  who  looks  at  a  bright,  nar- 
row, intensely  interesting  field  with  one  eye;  his  other 
eye  is  wide  open,  but  voluntarily  blinded.  It  actually 
sees  nothing  because  it  intends  to  see  nothing.  Search- 
light vision  is  strong  and  keen  within  its  own  field, 
powerless  outside  it.  Taken  alone,  it  is  false  because 
it  ignores  much.  The  mind  is  hungry  for  truth  and  for 
the  whole  truth ;  it  grows  weak  and  restless  when  it  has 
only,  fragments  to  feed  upon. 

We  who  can  give  ourselves  wholly  to  the  whole  alone, 
are  perpetually  trying  to  give  ourselves  whole-heart- 
edly to  this  piece  of  business,  to  that  reform,  to  this  pa- 
tient, to  this  picture.  We  are  not  built  so.  We  cannot 


274  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

get  the  whole  of  ourselves  into  our  daily  work,  not 
even  into  our  play  or  our  love.  The  fruitless  attempt 
results  in  a  cramp  of  the  soul  which  hardens  into  per- 
manent contracture,  unless  we  relieve  it  by  a  soul- 
stretch,  such  as  a  tired  man  gives  when  he  opens  arms 
and  legs  wide  and  extends  himself  like  a  starfish. 
Prayer  has  been  often  and  rightly  described  in  meta- 
phors of  opening  a  shuttered  and  darkened  existence 
Vto  let  in  the  light  of  Heaven.  The  figure  implies  that 
normally  we  are  in  open  communication  with  the 
whole  spirit  and  purpose  of  life,  just  as  our  bodies  are 
in  open  communication,  through  the  interchange  of 
breathing  and  the  radiation  of  heat,  with  the  whole 
physical  universe. 

Nevertheless  we  attempt  again  and  again  to  shut  our- 
selves off  in  spiritually  unventilated  corners.  There 
we  stifle  and  droop.  Play  and  love  revive  us  partially 
because  they  take  us  into  better- ventilated,  less 
cramped  activities.  Worship  fulfills  what  play,  art,  and 
cl  love  attempt.^  "Pleasure,  recreation,  friendship,  the 
companionship  of  men  and  women,  beauty,  —  all 
these  recall  the  outgoings  of  ambition  and  moral  effort 
and  unite  a  man  with  his  natural  appreciation.  Wor- 
ship is  the  whole  which  includes  them."  ^ 

Because  worship  is  a  renewal  of  our  depleted  spiritual 

*  "  Worship  is  ideally  capable  of  fulfilling  all  the  functions  of  the  other 
means  of  re-integrating  selfhood,  whether  of  love,  of  recreation,  or  of 
sleep  itself  (witness  the  exploits  in  comparative  sleeplessness  of  Madame 
Guyon,  of  Philip  of  Alcantara,  and  of  many  another)."  Hocking,  p.  563. 

«  Hocking,  p.  418. 


THE  APPROACH  TO  PRAYER         275 

energies,  it  is  naturally  intermittent.  One  need  not  jeer 
at  the  worshiper  for  spending  so  little  time  on  that 
which  he  declares  to  be  his  salvation.  For  it  is  in  work, 
play,  and  love  that  he  must  earn  the  right  to  pray  as 
he  earns  the  promise  of  sleep.  No  one  can  find  out 
except  by  trying  whether  he  needs  prayer  once  an  hour, 
once  a  week,  or  less  often.  The  rhythm  of  its  recurrence 
should  be  governed  like  that  of  any  physiological  func- 
tion, varying  like  food,  sleep  and  recreation,  with  our 
expenditures  of  effort  and  energy.* 

We  often  advise  each  other  to  "  think  it  over  and  see 
what  on  the  whole  seems  best";  or  we  say,  ^'  All  things 
considered,  I  have  decided  to  go."  Any  one  who  did 
this  would  be  near  to  prayer.  Such  phrases  are  loosely 
used,  but  they  suggest  that  once  upon  a  time,  in  the 
morning  of  life,  when  the  phrase  and  the  phrase- 
maker  were  new,  some  one  verily  tried  to  shape  his 
decision  after  considering  all  things  that  lay  within  his 
range  of  vision.  Preserved  in  that  phrase  is  somebody's 
revulsion  from  snap- judgments,  some  one's  determina- 
tion to  get  a  view  of  the  background  and  middle  dis- 
tance of  his  life  as  well  as  its  foreground,  and  to  shape 
his  course  accordingly.  We  live  in  choked  and  con- 
fusing foregrounds,  full  of  noise  and  fury,  but  crammed 
with  significance.  We  must  not  miss  the  message  of  the 

*  There  is,  however,  another  type  of  prayer-like  consciousness  which, 
like  breathing,  should  be  in  perpetual  operation.  Perhaps  something 
more  like  aspiration  than  prayer  is  what  St.  Paul  had  in  mind  when  he 
bade  us  "pray  without  ceasing,"  something  which  I  shall  try  to  describe 
more  fully  below. 


276  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

moment.  The  present  is  full  of  brand-new  events, 
each  bearing  in  its  hand  a  letter  personally  addressed 
to  you  and  another  to  me.  These  messages  must  be 
read  and  promptly  answered,  else  we  miss  our  chance 
and  disappoint  many  hopes.  But  if  we  are  not  to  be 
batted  about  like  clowns  in  a  circus,  we  must  now  and 
then  pull  out  of  the  stress  and  see  what  it  means,  after 
"considering  all  things"  that  are  past  and  distant,  or 
future  and  shadowy,  but  still  alive  and  at  work  in  our 
minds. 

"Considering  all  things"  is  turning  from  part  to 
whole,  from  brilliant  near-seen  views,  all  foreground,  no 
perspective,  to  a  vision  like  that  from  a  mountain-top. 
Whoever  tries  to  "see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole" 
by  retiring  to  a  viewpoint  detached  from  the  current 
quotations  and  the  latest  news  has  moved  in  the  direc- 
tion of  prayer.  Your  soul  and  mine  axe  parts  of  God. 
We  forget  this.  Prayer  reminds  us. 

It  is  especially  when  we  are  confused  and  uncertain 
what  next  to  do  that  we  turn  from  partial  to  wider 
views.  When  lost  in  the  woods  you  climb  the  highest 
tree  in  sight.  From  the  top  of  it  you  may  be  able  to 
see  where  you  have  come  from,  where  you  are,  and 
where  you  should  go  next.  Such  a  view  is  precisely 
what  prayer  gives.  It  orients  us.  As  we  look  over  our 
stumbling,  circuitous  past  we  see  where  we  have  veered 
from  the  track  that  we  meant  to  keep.  We  see  just 
where  our  mingled  success  and  failure  have  landed  us. 
We  look  ahead  and  shape  our  course  afresh. 


THE  APPROACH  TO  PRAYER         277 

It  takes  time,  this  tree-climbing,  and  in  any  party 
of  woodsmen  there  is  usually  one  who  begrudges  that 
time.  The  evening  is  pressing  on.  Tree-climbing 
does  n't  get  us  ahead.  It  may  give  pretty  views,  but 
while  we  are  waiting  idle  here  we  might,  by  ranging 
about,  have  hit  upon  the  path.  Similar  reproaches 
are  directed  at  prayer  and  worship.  The  immediate 
utility  of  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  worship  is  as  little 
as  that  of  painfully  shinning  up  the  tree.  We  are  not 
then  or  there  getting  ahead  with  our  jobs.  We  have 
turned  away  from  the  world;  we  seem  to  be  getting 
"other-worldly"  and  monkish. 

But  it  is  the  greenhorn,  not  the  old  woodsman,  who 
chafes  at  the  halt  for  a  look  around.  The  best  way  to 
get  ahead  is  sometimes  to  stop  short  and  see  where  we 
are.  The  best  way  to  advance  our  work  is,  sometimes, 
to  lay  it  aside  and  go  to  bed.  On  the  whole,  all  things 
*  considered,  we  may  find  ourselves  on  the  wrong  track. 
Then  our  pause  has  been  time  well  spent. 

When  the  captain  takes  an  observation  at  sea  to 
settle  the  ship's  position,  her  run  and  her  course,  he 
gives  up  for  the  time  being  the  task  of  sailing  the  ship. 
Whatever  he  has  been  doing  to  earn  his  pay  and  get  the 
ship  ahead,  he  must  quit  while  he  is  taking  his  daily 
observation.  His  detachment  from  ordinary  work 
during  that  observation,  has  a  parallel  in  the  apparent 
uselessness  of  prayer.  It  bakes  no  bread ;  it  cuts  no  ice. 
It  leaves  the  present  and  the  foreground  of  life  for  others 
to  attend  to.    It  retires  for  a  fresh  look  at  the  whole, 


278  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

as  a  painter  stops  and  backs  away  from  his  canvas, 
now  and  then,  to  get  a  truer  impression  of  what  he  has 
been  doing,  and  has  still  to  do.  "Why  don't  you  stick 
to  your  painting?  '*  an  outsider  might  say.  "You  'd  get 
along  much  faster  if  you  kept  your  eyes  open  and 
painted  steadily,  instead  of  stopping  so  often  and 
squinting  through  your  half-closed  eyelids."  Smart 
but  false. 

There  are  many  other  familiar  acts  which  suggest 
the  value  of  prayer-pauses  in  the  zealous  practice  of  our 
vocation.  The  locomotive  engineer,  peering  about  the 
vitals  of  his  engine  during  a  stop,  has  often  reminded 
me  of  Sunday  worship.  The  shopman  who  periodically 
closes  shop  and  refuses  customers,  while  he  takes  ac- 
count of  stock,  knows  better  at  the  end  of  the  pause 
where,  on  the  whole,  he  is  and  what  he  should  do  next. 
The  factory  engineer  knows  that  his  machinery,  like 
his  help,  needs  to  rest  one  day  in  seven.  When  the  power 
is  turned  off,  he  can  carefully  go  over  his  machinery, 
find  flaws  and  weak  spots  (as  any  one  of  us  finds  them 
in  himself  when  he  prays),  and  thus  true  up  the  wholcc 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

RECOLLECTION:    DISENTHRALLMENT:    SOLITUDE    AND 
SINCERITY:  THE  REENFORCEMENT  OF  ASSOCIATION 

No  one  is  armor-proof  against  forgetfulness.  Most  of 
the  facts  and  faces  that  we  meet,  soon  become  as  dead 
as  if  they  had  never  lived  in  our  experience.  We  do 
not  keenly  regret  their  death.  But  our  plight  becomes 
more  serious  when  we  forget  what  we  had  intended  to 
remember.  To  me  the  stupendous  total  of  our  unin- 
tended forgettings  is  one  of  the  tragic  and  humiliating 
facts  of  existence.  Most  serious  of  all,  however,  is  the 
kind  of  forgetfulness  acknowledged  by  a  boy  of  my 
acquaintance  who,  after  shirking  his  music  lesson, 
very  truthfully  explained  that,  though  he  had  not  for- 
gotten the  lesson,  he  had  forgotten  the  importance  of  it} 
It  is  this  sort  of  forgetfulness  that  really  disintegrates 
personality.  A  little  more  of  this  and  a  man  splits  into 
"multiple  personalities,"  a  polite  way  of  saying  that 
he  has  "gone  to  pieces." 

The  double  and  triple  lives  that  we  lead  may  trans- 
gress no  law  of  conventional  morality  and  yet  may  dis- 
sipate our  force  and  squander  the  spirit's  patrimony 
more  than  riotous  living.  Home  life,  business  life,  and 
recreation  dwell  in  compartments  so  separate  that  each 
forgets  the  others  and  may  contradict  them.  This 
division  and  mutual  estrangement  of  our  energies  surely 

»  See  Every  Day  Ethics,  by  Ella  Lyman  Cabot.  H.  Holt  &  Co.,  p.  217. 


28o  WHAT   MEN  LIVE   BY 

calls  for  some  effort  to  pull  ourselves  together,  to  intro- 
duce the  different  sides  of  ourselves  each  to  each  and 
see  them  at  least  cooperate  instead  of  competing. 

When  we  set  ourselves  to  this  work  of  collecting  or 
re-collecting  the  scattered  pieces  of  ourselves,  we  be- 
gin a  task  which,  if  carried  to  its  natural  conclusion, 
ultimately  becomes  prayer.  We  are  driven  to  some- 
thing of  the  sort  when  the  shock  of  illness,  war,  bank- 
ruptcy, or  death  has  shaken  us  out  of  the  rut  of  habit 
and  brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  mess  which  we  are 
making  of  our  years.  It  was  after  such  a  shock  Lincoln 
called  the  whole  nation  to  prayer  in  his  message  of 
December  l,  1862:  '*The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are 
inadequate  to  the  stormy  present.  The  occasion  is 
piled  high  with  difficulty  and  we  must  rise  to  the  occa- 
sion. As  our  case  is  new,  so  we  must  think  anew  and 
act  anew.  We  must  disenthrall  ourselves  and  then  we 
shall  save  our  country." 

Recollection  leads  now  and  again  to  disenthrallment. 
But  innocence  preserves  us  perpetually  free  of  the  en- 
thrallments  of  habit  and  falsehood.  In  Hans  Christian 
Andersen's  story,  ''The  Emperor's  New  Clothes,*'  two 
rogues  offer  to  weave  for  his  majesty  a  suit  of  extra- 
ordinary beauty,  which,  however,  will  be  invisible  to 
all  who  are  stupid  and  to  all  who  are  unfit  to  hold  their 
present  offices.  The  sharpers  are  awarded  the  contract 
and  set  to  work  with  nimble  fingers  pretending  to 
weave  a  fictitious  fabric  on  empty  looms.  Courtiers 
and  high  officials  visit  the  weavers  and  see  nothing, 


REENFORCEMENTS  281 

but  dare  not  say  so,  since  such  a  confession  would  prove 
them  dull  or  unfit  for  office.  For  the  same  reason 
the  king  pretends  to  see  and  to  admire  the  invisible  fab- 
ric on  the  empty  looms,  puts  on  the  imaginary  clothes, 
and  sallies  forth  to  exhibit  them  amid  the  hypocritical 
applause  and  fawning  enthusiasm  of  his  courtiers. 

''But  he  has  nothing  on!''  said  a  child,  who  saw  him 
from  its  doorstep. 

Ah !  what  cheers  and  whooping  should  now  be  echo- 
ing down  the  centuries,  what  rockets  and  Bengal  lights 
should  light  up  the  heavens  to  applaud  that  magnifi- 
cent act  of  disenthrallment !  With  a  child's  miraculous 
strength  he  pulled  himself  out  of  the  entangling  net  of 
human  prejudices  and  saw  the  whole  fact,  as  T?sus  did 
when  he  stood  by  the  woman  of  Samaria.  To  see 
straight,  to  speak  or  write  truly  we  have  first  and 
chiefly  to  get  ourselves  cleansed  of  the  encrusted  de- 
posits of  other  people's  ideas,  and  of  our  own  caked 
habits. 

*  "Suitably  clad  externally,  but  mentally  clogged  with 
a  thousand  irrelevant  thoughts,  I  go  to  visit  a  friend."  ' 
To  be  worthy  of  this  friendship  I  must  first  cleanse  and 
disenthrall  myself  by  "full  imaginative  recall  of  that 
friend's  life  and  my  relation  to  it.  This  is  the  begin- 
ning of  a  "prayer  before  action,"  the  preliminary  puri- 
fication which  tradition  has  so  long  prescribed  for  us. 

When  one  gathers  himself  for  a  leap,  poises  and  fo- 
cuses his  energies,  quelling  internal  conflicts,  banishing 

'  From  an  unpublished  paper  on  Prayer,  by  Ella  Lyman  Cabot. 


282  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

irrelevant  twitches  and  tremors,  he  acts  out  a  phys- 
ical analogy  to  the  prayer  before  battle.  He  may  go 
beyond  analogy.  A  college  football  player  earned  some 
newspaper  notoriety  and  much  ridicule  a  few  years 
ago  when  it  became  known  that  he  was  accustomed  to 
pray  before  a  match  game.  The  idea  of  begging  God 
to  favor  his  team  and  to  weaken  the  rival  team  natur- 
ally excited  derision  and  contempt,  for  '*  Prayer  that 
craves  a  particular  commodity,  anything  less  than  all 
good,  is  mean  and  vile,"^  as  Emerson  says.  But  I  know 
from  team-mates  of  the  derided  player  that  his  prayer 
was  essentially  like  Lincoln*s:  **  I  am  not  trying  to  find 
out  whether  God  is  on  our  side,  but  whether  we  are  on 
God's  side." 

He  was  pulling  himself  together,  trying  to  get  m 
touch  with  the  ultimate  sources  of  his  strength,  and, 
not  being  unduly  influenced  by  the  modern  fad  of 
atheism,  he  naturally  turned  to  God. 

But  it  is  with  the  disenthrallment  which  initiates  the 
prayer  before  action,  and  all  other  prayers,  that  I  am 
just  now  concerned.  If  you  make  a  failure  of  your  visit 
to  the  friend  from  whom  you  have  been  separated  for 
months,  if  you  fill  up  the  precious  minutes  with  chat 
about  superficialities  which  neither  of  you  wants  to 
recall,  and  if  you  leave  untouched  the  deeper  or  more 
fruitful  interests  in  which  your  friendship  has  been 
built  up,  it  is  usually  because  there  has  been  no 
preliminary  cleansing  of  the  surface  of  your  mind 
*  Emerson's  Essays,  First  Series,  Riverside  Edition,  p.  76. 


REENFORCEMENTS  283 

where  are  accumulated  all  sorts  of  riff-raff,  news  and 
happenings,  gossip  and  comment,  which  have  stuck 
there  from  your  miscellaneous  contacts  with  uninvited 
experience. 

These  clogging  impurities  confuse  you  like  the  thick- 
ets in  which  the  woodsman  loses  his  way.  Your  mind 
must  be  free  of  them  before  it  can  see  its  course.  Such 
disenthrallment  is  essential  in  attempts  to  rid  ourselves 
of  the  curse  of  indecision.  All  prayers  for  direction 
spring,  I  suppose,  out  of  the  misery  of  indecision. 
Opposite  courses  of  action  are  balanced  evenly ;  we  are 
drawn  to  each  and  repelled  from  each.  A  classical  in- 
stance is  Emerson's  doubt  about  leaving  the  ministry. 
There  were  no  heretic  hunters  on  his  trail.  The  pres- 
sure was  all  directed  toward  inducing  him  to  stay. 
Only  his  own  conscience  urged  his  breaking  away  from 
the  church  whose  traditions  he  loved;  he  was  by  no 
means  certain  that  his  scruples  (about  his  fitness  to 
perform  the  rite  of  the  Lord's  Supper)  were  of  import- 
ance. He  dropped  his  work  and  went  to  the  mountains 
to  find  help  in  his  indecision.  I  do  not  know  that  he 
prayed.  What  interests  me  now  is  his  act  of  disenthrall- 
ment, his  decision  to  put  distance  and  new  surround- 
ings between  himself  and  the  tangled  situation.  He 
wanted  a  fresh  view  from  a  height ;  he  got  it,  came  back, 
and  resigned  his  pastorate. 

I  have  strung  together  these  familiar  experiences  of 
spiritual  fatigue,  of  mountain-top  views,  nautical  ob- 
servations,  stock-taking,   re-collecting  our  scattered 


284  WHAT  MEN  LIVE   BY 

selves,  and  of  disenthrallment  in  the  pause  before  de- 
cisive action,  because  I  want  to  show  that  we  are  again 
and  again  in  a  state  of  mind  close  to  the  shores  of  prayer. 
We  usually  sheer  off,  it  is  true ;  but  it  would  be  just  as 
natural  to  land,  and  just  as  common,  were  it  not  that 
modern  fashions  and  modern  education  have  made  us 
half  unconsciously  dislike  the  sensation  of  touching  this 
firm  ground.  Disenthrallment,  for  which  Lincoln  ap- 
pealed to  the  nation  in  the  early  threatening  months  of 
the  Civil  War,  is  an  attempt  to  go  back  to  first  prin- 
ciples, to  free  ourselves  of  prejudices  which  check  grow- 
ing insight  into  a  new  situation.  It  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  of  the  approaches  to  prayer,  and  I  want  to 
illustrate  it  further. 

We  often  say  to  each  other  that  the  person  who  has 
lost,  or  never  acquired,  the  capacity  for  wonder,  is 
bound  to  dry  up.  Premature  senility  is  always  threat- 
ening him  if  his  mind  cannot  rest  in  admiration.  If 
he  cannot  surrender  himself  to  pure  wonder  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  child,  a  crystal,  a  skyscraper,  a  starry  night, 
or  a  leaping  salmon,  he  does  not  get  that  bath  of  spirit- 
ual refreshment  which  keeps  us  young.  Wonder  rejuv- 
enates us  first  because  it  floats  off  the  load  of  respon- 
sibility; for  the  moment  it  washes  the  mind  clean  of 
all  thoughts,  good  and  bad,  sad  or  pleasing.  Thereby 
wonder  brings  our  ordinary  mental  life  to  a  standstill. 
It  makes  one  stop  talking  ("struck  dumb  with  aston- 
ishment") and  even  suspends  the  ordinary  uses  of 


REENFORCEMENTS  285 

thought.  The  mind  comes  to  rest  without  going  to 
sleep.  It  draws  in  its  strained  projects,  recalls  the  scat- 
tered flocks  of  thought,  and  rounds  itself  up  like  the 
resting  amoeba.  The  soul  stares  as  the  eye  stares,  and 
stands  stock-still  like  the  body. 

But  wonder,  with  its  disconcerting  and  eirresting 
mystery,  disconnects  us  as  well.  To  be  rapt  in  amaze- 
ment means  by  derivation  to  be  snatched  out  of  the 
orderly  or  disorderly  sequence  of  our  ordinary  behavior. 
In  our  amazement  we  no  longer  notice  what  else  be- 
sides the  wonderful  apparition  is  around  us.  We  are 
deaf  and  blind  as  well  as  dumb.  This  quenching  and 
isolation  of  the  soul  is  but  half,  the  negative  half,  of 
wonder.  The  other  half  is  an  effortless  absorption  in 
the  marvel  which  is  before  us.  We  see,  hear,  and  re- 
member what  astonishes  us;  it  stamps  itself  photo- 
graphically upon  us.  Then,  freed  from  ourselves  and 
our  ordinary  thought-harness,  we  dive  into  the  heart 
of  something  better. 

Wonder  does  not  always  lead  to  prayer;  it  may 
lead  to  stupefaction.  I  suppose  we  can  waste  as  much 
time  in  watching  a  child  as  in  any  other  way.  Our 
wondering  gaze  may  degenerate  into  automatic  and 
fruitless  staring.  Like  all  disenthralled  states,  like  all 
prayer  and  worship,  it  is  to  be  judged  by  its  results. 
Refreshment,  new  plans  of  action,  more  energy,  more 
adaptability,  more  sympathy,  should  issue  from  the 
momentary  monastic  retreat  into  which  wonder 
tempts  us.  Wonder  at  a  child  makes  for  mental  sound- 


286  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

ness  and  vigor,  because  it  may  shock  us  out  of  our 
"anxious  consistency"  with  our  previous  little  ideas 
about  children.  But  it  may  simply  suspend  all  mental 
progress  and  leave  us  drifting  and  swinging  in  vacancy, 
as  boys  swing  on  a  gate,  half  hypnotized  by  the  motion. 
For  wonder,  like  beauty,  is  a  gate  that  we  are  not  meant 
to  swing  on.  We  are  to  open  it  and  pass  through  into 
prayer  or  into  action. 

The  danger  that  wonder  may  degenerate  into  "mere 
wondering"  is  parallel  to  the  risks  of  aestheticism.  The 
average  man  believes  by  instinct  that  there  is  some- 
thing of  namby-pamby  in  the  career  of  any  one  who 
devotes  himself  to  beauty.  This  is  a  healthy  instinct 
For  the  disenthrallment  which  beauty  achieves  for 
us  ought  to  be  brief  and  brilliant,  a  "cool  silver  shock 
of  the  pool's  living  water"  which  sends  us  bouncing 
back  to  some  definite  task.  While  it  lasts,  neverthe- 
less, beauty  ought  to  be  one  of  our  surest  and  swiftest 
aids  to  disenthrallment,  to  worship,  and  through  them 
to  action. 

I  have  already  tried  to  describe  the  miraculous  power 
of  beauty  and  affection  to  whirl  us  about,  turning  our 
backs  to  the  working  world,  and  directing  our  delighted 
eyes  to  a  vista  of  refreshment.  In  that  vista  I  cannot 
tell  where  love  and  recreation  cease  and  worship  begins, 
for  I  do  not  believe  that  the  man  most  conscious  that 
he  Is  praying  is  always  the  most  prayerful.  But  when- 
ever we  begin  to  recognize  that  our  "beholding  and 


REENFORCEMENTS  287 

jubilant  sour*  is  directly  continuous  with  the  Soul  of 
the  Universe,  we  have  begun  to  worship. 

That  saturation  with  beauty  brings  us  nearer  to 
prayer  has  been  instinctively  realized  in  planning  the 
outlook,  the  architecture,  the  decoration,  the  music, 
and  incense  of  many  churches.  But  our  perception  of 
this  analogy  and  our  consequent  recoil  from  the  bar- 
renness of  our  grandfather's  "meeting-house"  has 
made  us  forget  that  there  are  types  of  beauty  that  do 
not  promote  worship  at  all.  Operatic  and  amorous 
music  is  often  sung  in  churches  in  a  style  fit  to  secular- 
ize and  suppress  any  movement  towards  prayer. 

I  have  given  up  trying  to  believe  that  in  sorrow  and 
failure  we  can  always  find  blessings  disguised.  I  now 
think  that  such  blows  may  contract,  harden,  even 
crush,  a  soul  until  it  has,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no  power 
to  react.  Just  as  beauty,  and  even  love,  may  spoil  a 
child  by  soothing  it  into  a  lackadaisical  and  flabby 
acquiescence,  so  frustration,  and  disappointment, 
though  they  brace  and  stimulate  some  of  us,  cer- 
tainly seem  to  hammer  the  life  out  of  others.  Yet, 
though  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  always  a  good  thing 
to  be  balked  and  thrown  back  upon  ourselves,  I  can- 
not doubt  that  it  may  be  just  what  we  need.  It  de- 
pends on  what  else  there  is  in  the  sufferer  and  around 
him. 

But  whether  the  final  outcome  of  sorrow  and  failure 
is  good  or  bad,  their  immediate  effect  is  certainly  to 


288  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

pull  us  up  short.  "No  farther  now  in  that  direction," 
they  say  to  us.  *'  Give  up  these  hopes,  shut  that  desk, 
lay  down  those  tools.**  One  of  the  results  of  this  ar- 
rest is  to  make  us  look  ourselves  squarely  in  the  face, 
and  a  rueful  sight  it  is  for  most  of  us!  We  are  eager  to 
recommend  such  a  mirror  to  others,  but  rarely  feel  the 
need  of  it  ourselves.  Even  if  we  do  feel  the  need,  we 
may  be  incapable  of  turning  to  face  it.  Then  ill-fortune 
takes  us  by  the  shoulders  and  twitches  us  about  with  a 
whirl  that  has  all  the  suddenness  and  externality  of 
the  revolution  wrought  by  beauty.  Despite  the  agony 
and  wasted  effort  by  the  way,  such  a  revolution  may  be 
salvation.  For  to  array  one  self  against  another  in 
bitter  civil  war  may  be  the  only  discoverable  way  of 
saving  both.  We  rarely  do  any  thinking  unless  we 
have  to ;  one  of  the  forces  which  most  often  knocks  us 
out  of  self-contentment  in  a  round  of  conventional  or 
unconventional  habits,  is  misfortune.  When  forced 
to  reflect  and  be  reflected,  I  may  be  driven  to  ask, 
'What  am  I  here  for?**  "What  have  I  been  doing?*' 
Then  I  touch  the  solid  ground  of  repentance,  near  to 
prayer. 

"When  half -gods  go,  the  gods  arrive.**  Thinking  is 
not  worship,  but  if  it  is  initiated  by  a  wrench  of  sorrow 
which  banishes  the  half -gods  of  our  superficial  existence, 
God  may  appear.  That  is  why  we  need  the  wrench. 

In  some  of  us  the  difference  between  serious  thinking 
and  prayer  is  the  difference  between  half  speed  and 
full  speed.  Thinking  plus  agonized  questioning  of  the 


REENFORCEMENTS  289 

scheme  of  things  which  has  rolled  me  in  the  dust,  has 
not  the  confident  appeal  of  the  believer  to  his  God ; 
but  if  it  is  serious  it  will  probably  come  to  that. 

I  have  tried  to  picture  disenthrallment,  the  initial 
stage  of  worship,  springing  from  experiences  of  recol- 
lection, of  danger  and  decisive  action,  of  wonder, 
beauty,  sorrow,  and  failure.  I  have  still  to  write  of 
joy  and  success  as  disenthrallments. 

"A  man  of  average  capacity  never  feels  so  small  as 
when  people  tell  him  that  he  is  great,"  said  Professor 
G.  H.  Palmer,  after  listening  to  a  torrent  of  eulogy  at 
the  dinner  celebrating  his  fortieth  year  as  a  Harvard 
teacher.  Joy  and  success  tell  us  that  we  are  great.  We 
may  be  foolish  enough  to  believe  it ;  but  sometimes  we 
are  plunged  into  humiliation  by  the  staring  contrast 
between  our  own  insignificance  and  the  splendor  of 
the  opportunity  with  which  happiness  crowns  us.  One 
looks  so  paltry  and  mean  under  a  crown  fit  for  a  demi- 
god. I  lifted  a  six-year-old  girl  off  an  electric  car  the 
other  day  because  her  father  had  the  baby  in  his  arms. 
She  did  not  distinguish  me  from  the  machinery  of  the 
car  till  she  had  reached  the  sidewalk  and  got  a  grip  of 
her  father's  hand.  Then  she  turned  and  sent  after  me  a 
flash, of  smiling  recognition  that  made  me  feel  like  the 
tinker  who  was  carried  to  the  king's  palace  while  asleep, 
dressed  in  magnificent  clothes,  and  saluted  as  prince 
when  he  awoke. 

So  she  saluted  me,  whom  she  had  never  seen  before, 


290  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

and  her  look  almost  crushed  me  beneath  the  weight  of 
honor,  blessed  but  painfully  undeserved.  Such  a  min- 
gling of  abasement  and  exaltation  gives  one  for  the  mo- 
ment a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  Familiar  objects 
look  strange  and  new,  old  problems  soluble.  We  are 
in  Lincoln's  phrase  disenthralled,  —  free  for  the  instant 
to  see  truly,  as  Hans  Christian  Andersen's  little  boy 
saw  the  truth.  But  every  bit  of  pure  truth  has  in  it 
the  quality  and  aroma  of  the  whole,  wherein  honor,  hu- 
mor and  pathos,  victory,  pain,  and  defeat  are  wonder- 
fully mingled.  Linked  with  that  perception  of  our  own 
littleness  which  is  pressed  home  upon  us  in  any  mo- 
ment of  entrancing  joy,  is  the  contrasted  majesty  and 
beneficence  of  the  universe.  We  could  not  feel  so  small 
and  at  the  same  time  so  richly  blessed,  unless  we  felt 
that  we  are  placed,  given  a  home  in  the  world.  The 
spiritual  essentials  are  for  an  instant  clearly  isolated  by 
the  experience  of  disenthrallment ;  and  whatever  gives 
us  clear  sight  of  these  brings  us  close  to  worship.  . 

Before  battle  and  before  any  action  which  we  are 
alert  enough  to  perceive  as  decisive,  there  is  a  natural 
impulse  to  pull  ourselves  together  and  look  over  past 
and  future  with  an  ingathering  sweep  which  prepares 
us  for  prayer.  I  suppose  that  many  a  man  who  has 
rarely  tried  to  pray  at  other  times  finds  himself  groping 
in  that  direction  when  the  sense  of  impending  action 
descends  upon  him.  Responsibility  and  danger  are 
closely  linked  in  their  power  to  turn  us  toward  the 


REENFORCEMENTS  291 

Eternal,  to  make  us  "theotropic."  Any  responsibility 
vividly  felt  calls  the  risk  of  failure  to  our  minds  and  at 
the  same  time  centers  those  risks  around  our  own  de- 
cisive action.  We  see  how  small  is  our  ingenuity  com- 
pared with  the  incalculable  chances  of  disaster.  But  we 
also  see  that  just  here  and  now  the  universe  has  put  it 
"up  to  us." 

Like  other  prayer-compelling  forces,  responsibility  is 
always  close  to  us.  Opportunity  is  always  now  or  never 
for  us,  and  every  day  is  Judgment  Day.  But  what- 
ever makes  us  feel  this  afresh  —  appointment  to  office, 
marriage,  parenthood  —  gives  us  a  simplicity  at  once 
humble  and  bold,  disentangles  us  from  the  trees  and 
lets  us  see  the  forest.  To  find  these  nodal  points  of 
concentrated  insight  and  recollection  is  also  vital  to 
the  growth  of  friendship,  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that 
prayer  is  as  valuable  before  a  visit  as  before  a  battle. 

As  an  axe-blow  upon  a  tree,  shaking  the  ground  in 
which  it  is  rooted,  shivers  through  the  entire  globe 
and  out  through  every  part  of  the  universe,  so  any  act 
spreads  outward  through  a  network  of  endless  con- 
sequences. Responsibility  is  my  thread  of  connection 
with  this  infinite  labyrinth.  I  should  be  mad  if  I  at- 
tempted to  follow  it  to  an  end.  But  worse  than  mad- 
ness is  the  spiritual  near-sightedness  which  leads  us  to 
think,  feel,  and  work  as  if  we  had  no  such  connections 
with  the  infinite.  Such  short-sightedness  is  a  species  of 
insanity  perhaps  more  widespread  than  any  other.  To 
go  as  far  as  we  can  into  the  network  of  thoughts  re- 


292  WHAT  MEN   LIVE  BY 

suiting  from  any  thought  or  of  consequences  following 
any  act,  and  then  to  see  that  our  part  permeates  and 
is  permeated  by  the  whole  life  of  the  universe,  is  the 
path  of  practical  wisdom,  of  spiritual  hygiene,  but  also 
of  worship.  For  there  is  that  in  every  thought  and  act 
which  tells  us  all  we  need  to  know  of  the  whole  uni- 
verse, just  as  any  foot  of  space  cuid  any  minute  of  time 
stands  for  the  whole  and  mirrors  its  nature. 

Is  this  still  disenthrallment?  From  our  workaday 
associations,  yes.  To  be  launched  in  responsibility 
brings  us  into  wider  and  deeper  connections  by  snapping 
the  narrower  ones.  We  withdraw  from  people,  from 
work,  and  from  all  the  half -gods  of  ordinary  existence, 
into  a  solitude  wherein  we  can  be  sincere. 

Many  of  us  put  on  for  company  an  artificial  manner, 
a  forced  expression  or  a  *' society  smile."  This  mask 
need  not  be  false  or  fraudulent  in  the  ordinary  sense. 
It  may  be  only  the  expression  of  that  decent  self-re- 
spect which  makes  us  stand  erect  instead  of  slouching, 
or  dress  ourselves  properly  before  appearing  in  public. 
Yet  propriety  is  a  mask  which  may  hide  us  from  our- 
selves, if  it  becomes  habitual.  We  forget  to  take  off  our 
"society"  thoughts  with  our  ** society"  clothes.  The 
habit  of  keeping  up  with  the  moods  and  demands  of 
the  others  may  dampen  and  finally  quench  the  desire 
to  be  sincere  with  ourselves.  It  may  keep  us  from 
asking  ultimate  questions  or  entertaining  ultimate 
doubts. 


REENFORCEM  ENTS  293 

Furthermore,  all  moral  effort  involves  the  kind  of 
pretense  which  I  have  already  described  as ''  impersona- 
tion." Long  before  they  fit  us  we  have  to  take  up  the 
responsibilities  and  put  on  the  manners  of  adult  life, 
of  bread-winning,  parenthood,  salaried  work,  truth- 
telling,  and  chastity.  -We  have  to  act  as  if  we  were  fit 
and  competent  in  order  to  make  ourselves  so.  We  have 
to  assume  a  virtue  when  we  have  it  not  and  thus  pain- 
fully to  acquire  it.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  but  sooner 
or  later  the  accumulated  fatigue  of  impersonation,  the 
heat  and  weight  of  our  moral  costume,  grow  oppres- 
sive, and  should  be  thrown  off,  like  any  other  fatiguing 
burden.  To  strip  away  the  disguises  of  moral  strenuous- 
ness  and  of  social  compliance  as  the  actor  plucks  off  his 
wig  in  the  greenroom  may  lead  only  to  moral  laxity  or 
to  sleep;  yet  it  is  through  this  same  gate  that  we  must 
pass  to  that  solitude  and  ultimate  sincerity  which  is 
one  of  the  approaches  to  prayer.  For  our  best  as  well 
as  our  worst  may  be  buried  under  the  disguises  of 
moral  and  social  effort. 

(Woe  to  the  man  who  cannot  stop  acting;  who  makes 
no  difference  between  stage  and  greenroom,  and  who 
is  afraid  of  solitude!]  Mob-contagion,  the  automatic 
registration  and  reproduction  of  actions  which  no  one 
stai:ts  but  all  transmit,  needs  no  crowd.  Two  or  three 
can  create  it,  spread  it  and  magically  transform  each 
other  into  helpless  puppets,  dangling  on  strings  and 
twitched  by  the  dread  hand  of  Nobody-in-particular. 
Lowered  on  our  wires  to  such  a  marionette  stage  we 


294  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

surely  ** descend  to  meet,**  as  Emerson  said,  for  any 
value  that  there  is  in  us  splits  into  a  hodge-podge  of 
gregariousness. 

Make  this  state  of  things  bad  enough,  and  with  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  we  react ;  we  feel  a  salutary 
hunger  for  solitude  and  renewal.  Unfortunately  this 
reaction  may  not  be  fierce  enough  to  carry  us  farther 
than  unabashed  hygiene  prescribes.  We  retreat  to  the 
mountains,  the  sea,  or  the  country.  We  "go  abroad" 
in  search  of  health,  distraction,  or  "art,"  and  unfortu- 
nately we  often  partially  succeed.  These  palliative 
remedies  may  so  far  satisfy  us  that  we  fail  to  retreat 
into  ourselves.  We  do  not  burrow  back  to  our  origins ; 
we  reach  no  original  and  life-saving  insight.  We  stop 
on  this  side  of  prayer. 

A  dread  of  solitude  is  often  partially  responsible  for 
the  abortiveness  of  this  recoil  toward  prayer.  We  hear 
of  solitude  most  often  nowadays  in  connection  with 
vice  or  imprisonment.  The  dangers  and  the  abuses 
of  solitude  are  uppermost  in  our  minds.  And  solitude 
in  its  literal  sense,  which  we  do  not  often  face,  is  really 
hell.  If  in  solitude  you  meet  no  fresh  thoughts  which 
lead  you  back  to  the  sources  of  healing  and  forgiveness, 
if  instead  you  meet  only  the  tortures  of  helpless  lone- 
liness, then  solitude  is  your  worst  foe.  But  in  the  popu- 
lous solitude  of  disenthrallment,  the  noises  which  drown 
God's  voice  are  stilled. 


REENFORCEMENTS  295 

While  describing  the  aids  and  approaches  to  worship 
I  have  ignored  some  that  have  proved  historically 
most  helpful ;  I  mean  the  reenforcements  of  association 
in  churches  and  church  ceremonies.  Crowd-contagion, 
as  I  have  just  sketched  its  evil  influence,  is  headless 
and  blind.  It  leads  to  monarchy  or  to  murder;  it  exalts 
or  destroys  a  man  or  an  institution,  with  as  little  in- 
tention as  an  earthquake  or  a  drought. 

But  in  church  we  see  the  possibility  of  directing  and 
marshaling  the  gregarious  impulses  of  mankind  so  as 
to  concentrate  and  reenforce  our  theotropic  power.  The 
forces  that  make  soldiers  steadier  and  bolder  when 
they  can  touch  shoulders,  may  also  magnify  in  every 
member  of  a  congregation  the  timorous  impulse  toward 
worship.  For  the  crowd  is  not  simply  gathered  to- 
gether, but  gathered  together  in  the  name  of  Christ, 
under  the  leadership  and  unifying  influence  of  a  revered 
personality. 

Many  who  feel  gauche  or  irritable  in  church  can 
share  the  enthusiastic  church-member's  experiences  by 
recalling  a  college  commencement  or  the  meetings  of 
some  professional  society  or  political  club  pervaded 
by  a  genuine  instinct  of  membership.  I  believe  that 
many  college  graduates  get  their  nearest  approach  to 
the  experience  of  public  worship  in  the  surging  feelings 
of  devotion  and  loyalty  called  out  by  Commencement 
songs,  exercises,  and  speeches.  Few  of  us  go  to  Com- 
mencement as  a  duty ;  we  take  the  day  as  a  privilege 
and  an  opportunity.  We  forget  for  a  day  the  claims  of 


296  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

naked  utility  and  the  restraints  of  self-consciousness. 
There  is  aroused  in  us  a  powerful  emotion  of  gratitude 
and  loyalty  to  an  institution,  very  little  of  which  is 
visible  or  tangible.  It  is  genuinely  a  spirit  to  which  the 
graduates  are  loyal,  a  college  spirit  to  which  they  con- 
tribute and  from  which  they  draw  new  inspiration  for 
the  coming  year.  They  have  funded  there  their  best 
ideals  for  the  country  and  for  young  Americans.  Yet 
they  do  not  feel  that  they  have  made  or  invented  the 
spirit  of  this  institution  as  skeptics  say  men  invent 
God.  They  were  bom  in  it,  nourished  by  it,  and  love 
to  think  of  its  permanence  through  past  and  future, 
through  civil  war  and  through  the  passing  crazes  of 
the  time. 

This  is  the  spirit  in  which  we  ought  to  go  to  church, 
if  we  go  at  all,  because  we  love  it  and  find  there  our 
chance  for  service  and  for  refreshment,  a  renewing  of 
tarnished  standards,  an  outlet  for  reverence  and  aspira- 
tion. All  this  men  do  find  in  Commencement  Day,  and 
that  day  is  therefore  the  nearest  approach  that  many 
of  them  ever  find  to  worship.  Some  results  of  worship, 
the  reenforcement  of  loyalty,  devotion,  and  self-abase- 
ment, one  certainly  does  achieve  in  these  half-secular 
gatherings  for  the  praise  of  an  institution. 

By  incorporeal  aid,  as  well  as  by  visible  comrades 
we  rise  above  our  common  level,  both  in  church  and  in 
non-ecclesiastical  gatherings.  We  are  companioned  by 
the   many-colored   memories   of   former   gatherings, 
what  is  left  to  us  and  what  is  gone,  what  has  leaped  up 


REENFORCEMENTS  297 

anew  In  us  and  what  has  changed  almost  beyond  re- 
cognition ;  all  reenforce  and  renew  the  sacredness  of  the 
experience.  We  feel  the  unseen  presence  and  the  instant 
sympathy  of  many  who  have  sat  or  knelt  beside  us  in 
troublous  or  in  jubilant  days  long  piist,  *'als  knieten 
viele  ungesehen  und  beteten  mit  mir,'' 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

CONFESSION:   PETITION:   PRAISE 

When  a  child  wakes  in  the  grip  of  a  nightmare,  sobs 
and  stammers  it  out  to  his  mother,  and  finds  that  its 
horrors  have  swiftly  vanished,  he  has  discovered  the 
value  of  confession.  Through  expression  something 
confused  and  inarticulate  has  lost  its  terrors.  By  con- 
fession he  marshals  his  troubles  in  consciousness  and 
spreads  them  out  in  form  and  order;  thus  he  gains 
command  of  them  and  of  himself. 

Confession  in  more  or  less  secular  forms,  confession 
to  a  doctor  or  a  chum,  gives  some  relief  to  the  tortures 
of  internal  strife,  —  duplicity  and  fraud,  the  burden  of 
lies,  thefts,  treachery,  or  concealment,  or,  it  may  be, 
the  more  subtle  duplicity  of  warring  ideals,  curiosities, 
and  doubts.  In  any  case  we  seek  instinctively  through 
confession  some  inner  peace  or  at  least  some  truce  to 
inner  war.  We  make  these  secular  confessions  primarily 
because  we  cannot  hold  in  any  longer.  We  confess 
not  so  much  because  murder  will  out,  but  rather  be- 
cause the  tension  between  what  we  are  and  what  wc 
seem  has  grown  intolerable. 

An  interesting  variety  of  confession,  rediscovered 
and  reapplied  by  the  German  neurologist  S.  Freud, 
forms  part  of  his  "psycho-analytic"  treatment  of 
functional  nerv^ous  disorders.   People  suppress  and  try 


CONFESSION:   PETITION:   PRAISE      299 

to  bury  a  disappointed  hope  or  an  evil  desire ;  but  ac- 
cidentally they  bury  it  alive,  so  that  it  struggles  and 
shrieks  beneath  the  weight  of  daily  life  piled  on  top  of 
it.  This  is,  I  think,  the  essence  of  the  Freudian  doc- 
trine. Now  and  then  the  struggles  of  this  fragment  of 
buried  existence  shake  the  surface  of  everyday  life  and 
emerge  in  a  fit  of  weeping  or  of  rage.  "You  begin  to 
cry,"  said  a  small  boy  of  my  acquaintance,  "for  the 
thing  that  made  you  cry,  but  you  go  on  crying  for  all 
the  sad  and  sorry  things  that  ever  happened."  You 
had  never  quite  laid  the  ghost  of  these  ancient  sor- 
rows. From  the  deeper  inconsequent  strata  of  your 
existence  it  rises  to  haunt  and  oppress  3'ou. 

So  in  rage:  we  begin  to  be  angry  with  a  companion 
for  some  trifling  annoyance,  but  we  go  on  into  a  "fit  of 
rage"  because  our  momentary  anger  is  reen forced  by 
the  renascent  memories  of  a  multitude  of  other  in- 
juries, long  half -consciously  brooded,  never  quite  for- 
given. All  this  submerged  corruption  boils  up  to  the 
surface,  sometimes  with  our  own  aid;  we  may  work 
ourselves  into  a  passion  for  the  sake  of  the  vent  it  gives 
to  our  repressed  and  smouldering  resentment. 

A  better  vent  is  given  by  full  confession.  To  see 
clearly  that  we  are  abusing  our  fellow  for  his  part  in 
spats  which  both  should  have  forgiven  and  forgotten 
long  ago,  shames  us  or  makes  us  laugh.  The  air  is 
cleared ;  the  ghosts  of  past  quarrels  are  laid.  To  tempt 
the  sufferer  into  confessing  what  he  did  not  know 
enough  to  confess,  is  the  substance  of  psycho-analysis. 


300  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

though  Freud  has  misled  many  into  supposing  that 
all  such  confessions  must  deal  with  one  topic,  sex. 

The  assisted  and  guided  confession  of  half -conscious 
troubles,  and  the  more  spontaneous  outpourings  for 
relief  of  tortured  and  desperate  memories,  are  of  ob- 
vious value  in  moral  hygiene.  But  what  is  their  con- 
nection with  worship?  The  answer  seems  to  be  this: 
We  confess  because  of  a  hunger  for  soundness.  * '  What, ' ' 
we  ask,  "can  heal  the  divisions  of  this  wounded  spirit? 
What  shall  make  us  whole?"  It  is  confession.  But  the 
healing  of  one  wound  makes  us  aware  of  other  and 
•  deeper  suffering,  and  of  an  unsatisfied  hunger  for  friend- 
ship, not  only  between  the  hostile  parts  of  our  own  per- 
sonality, but  between  that  personality  and  the  social 
order  which  nourishes  it.  We  claim  our  right  and  duty 
to  take  a  man's  part,  not  a  parasite's,  in  the  society 
around  us.  We  want  to  lift  our  part  of  the  load  and  to 
deserve  some  portion  of  the  good  things  that  come  to 
us. 

But  this  Is  not  enough.  We  are  conscious  —  fitfully 
and  in  glimpses  —  that  our  deepest  gratitude  and  serv- 
ice cannot  be  paid  to  any  visible  institution  like  the 
State,  the  progress  of  science  or  civilization.  Behind 
these  are  the  universe  and  Its  Spirit,  which  made  them 
and  will  unmake  them  if  they  fail.  Fundamentally  we 
want  to  get  down  to  bed-rock.  We  long  for  harmony, 
not  only  with  the  better  part  of  our  own  selves,  not 
only  with  the  quite  fallible  and  temporary  institutions 
of  society,  but  with  the  bottom  principle  of  things.. 


CONFESSION:   PETITION:   PRAISE      301 

If  we  follow  home  the  impulse,  it  prompts  confession 
to  One  who  knows  better  than  we  how  to  frame  that 
confession  and  hears  what  we  mean  but  cannot  say. 

I  have  now  described  as  well  as  I  can  the  steps  by 
which  one  may  reach  prayer  in  its  usual  and  traditional 
sense,  namely,  petition.  I  shall  not  try  to  prove  that 
our  minds  are  given  their  nourishment  and  their  sense 
by  sharing  in  a  Total  Mind  through  which,  as  through 
an  atmosphere,  we  speak  to  each  other  and  deal^with 
nature.  That  proof,  as  I  believe,  is  abundantly  sup- 
plied in  other  books,  and  lives  in  the  deeds  of  all 
noble  people. 

But  many  who  are  aware  of  God,  and  try  to  live  ac- 
cording to  what  they  believe  to  be  his  will,  still  feel  that 
petition  is  a  relic  of  barbarous  or  of  naive  ages,  some- 
thing not  to  be  taken  seriously  by  reasonable  people. 
Prayers  for  rain,  for  victory  in  battle,  for  the  recov- 
ery of  the  sick, — what  are  these  but  frantic  attempts 
to  break  the  laws  of  nature?  And  even  if  they  could 
succeed,  would  they  not  be  grossly  selfish?  For  my 
victory  is  often  another's  despair.  The  rain  which  falls 
on  my  crops  leaves  my  distant  neighbor's  all  the  longer 
in  drought.  But  if  we  admit  that '  *  all  prayer  that  craves 
a  particular  commodity  —  anything  less  than  all  good 
—  fs  mean  and  vile,"  do  we  eliminate  all  the  prayers 
that  any  needy  mortal  wants  to  make?  '*A11  good"  is 
a  pretty  large  order  and  a  tolerably  vague  one. 

In  answer  to  this  question,  which  often  troubled  me 


302  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

in  past  years,  Christ's  words  in  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane  now  seem  wholly  satisfying:  "If  it  be  possible 
let  this  cup  pass  from  me.  Nevertheless  thy  will,  not 
mine  be  done.** 

No  one  who  believes  in  God,  and  thinks  of  duty  as 
the  increasing  approximation  to  his  will,  can  absolutely 
desire  any  particular  commodity  or  immunity.  Every 
wish  becomes  conditional  and  "has  a  string  to  it.'* 
Strange  though  it  sounds,  a  conditional  wish  is  not 
absurd  or  even  uncommon.  You  want  to  win  your  foot- 
ball game,  —  yes,  but  you  don't  want  to  win  by  any 
means  or  unconditionally.  You  want  to  win  if  you 
can  do  so  under  the  rules  of  the  game  and  with  no  more 
luck  than  is  compatible  with  the  dominance  of  skill  and 
science.  In  other  words,  what  you  want  above  all  else 
is  good  sport,  a  well-played  game,  and  an  antagonist 
worthy  of  your  steel.  To  win  by  a  fluke,  as  yacht- 
races  are  sometimes  won,  to  win  by  undetected  viola- 
tion of  the  rules,  or  to  win  over  an  antagonist  half  your 
size,  is  not  what  you  want.  Your  desire  to  win  is  lim- 
ited on  every  side.  If  it  be  possible  I  want  victory. 
Nevertheless  let  the  best  man  win.  Let  the  traditions 
of  good  sport  be  maintained  whoever  wins  or  loses. 
If  I  can  only  win  by  a  fluke  or  a  fraud,  then  I  want 
to  lose  and  to  lose  well. 

A  scientific  investigator  wants  his  experiment  to 
succeed ;  he  wants  to  be  known  and  promoted  through 
success.  He  is  looking,  perhaps,  for  a  cancer  cure.  But 
if  it  turns  out  that  he  is  looking  in  the  wrong  place. 


CONFESSION:   PETITION:   PRAISE      303 

he  wants  nature  to  tell  him  so  decisively.  He  wants  no 
fame  and  promotion  that  are  based  on  a  fluke  or  a 
misunderstanding.  He  would  rather  fail  and  waste  the 
time  and  money  which  he  has  spent  on  his  research 
than  publish  as  fact  any  "may  be."  Behind  his  intense 
desire,  there  is  for  him,  as  there  was  for  Christ,  a  "never- 
theless." 

Any  high-minded  man  wants  prosperity  for  his  party, 
his  nation,  his  race,  or  his  cause.  But  he  wants  it  con- 
ditionally. The  "rules  of  the  game"  still  govern  him. 
If  his  nation  can  survive  only  by  sucking  the  vitality  of 
other  struggling  nations,  then  he  wants  his  nation  to  go 
down.  Our  devotion  to  any  cause  becomes  conditional 
as  soon  as  by  sympathy  and  foresight  we  see  that 
our  cause  can  only  win  by  breaking  the  rules  of  the 
game. 

Whoever,  by  religious  instinct  or  religious  philos- 
ophy, has  come  to  believe  that  the  universe  is  a  team 
of  which  he  is  a  member,  wants  the  success  of  the  team 
unconditionally  and  with  his  whole  heart,  and  wants 
nothing  else,  save  with  the  condition,  "provided  this 
does  not  contravene  the  needs  of  the  team."  Such  is 
the  spirit  of  Christ's  prayer.  Obviously,  then,  condi- 
tional wishing  is  part  of  our  daily  exercise.  The  baby- 
ish tendency  to  "want  what  you  want  when  you  want 
it"  Is  squelched  or  modified  in  every  piece  of  concerted 
work,  in  every  advance  of  science,  and  every  harmoni- 
ous family.  To  revise  and  subordinate  our  wills  until 
they  are  conditional  on  the  success  of  a  city,  a  party,  or 


304  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

any  other  team  to  which  we  are  loyal,  is  among  the  most 
familiar  and  unheroic  necessities  of  civilized  life. 

We  take  the  further  step,  from  loyal  team-work  in 
business,  science,  or  politics,  to  world-loyalty  whenever 
we  realize  that  we  are  part  of  the  world  and  not  merely 
part  of  our  own  town.  When  one  is  driven  by  the  ne- 
cessities of  thought  or  drawn  by  some  swifter  process  to 
recognize  the  living  universe  beyond  the  city  limits, 
one  has  no  longer  any  absolute  desire  except  that  the 
Will  expressed  in  that  universe  shall  prevail.  This 
desire  is  the  perpetual  though  often  half-hearted  prayer, 
*'Thy  will  be  done."  My  own  conditional  will  is  not 
wiped  out,  unless  it  hopelessly  conflicts  with  itself, 
i.e.,  with  my  unconditional  will  for  the  success  of  the 
universe.  Loyal  citizenship  is  thus  one  of  the  approaches 
to  religious  loyalty  and  to  prayer. 

Since  we  are  so  bound  together  that  we  must  succeed 
or  fail  together,  each  at  bottom  wants  each  of  the  rest 
to  succeed  in  his  own  way,  so  far  as  he  can  find  it.  For 
the  same  reason,  each  nation  not  too  blind  to  see  the 
facts  is  interested  in  the  national  success  of  the  whole 
family  of  nations.  To  crush  out  a  single  nation  or  a 
single  will  is  to  weaken  the  world-team. 

Whoever  "craves  a  particular  commodity,"  uncon- 
ditionally and  without  consulting,  as  well  as  he  can,  the 
interests  of  all  concerned,  is  not  praying.  Before 
prayer  he  must  confront  his  desire  first  with  all  the 
visible  objections  to  see  if  they  can  be  harmonized  with 
it.  Then  finally  in  prayer  he  binds  himself ,  absolutely 


CONFESSION:   PETITION:  PRAISE      305 

and  in  advance,  to  modify  or  wipe  out  his  will  so  far  as 
this  may  be  necessary  in  order  to  meet  any  objections 
now  unknown  to  him  and  so  to  harmonize  it  with  the 
Will  of  the  Whole. 

Any  one  who  sincerely  wants  the  truth,  even  when  it 
wrecks  his  other  desires,  is  in  the  attitude  of  prayer. 
If  a  man  is  sincere  when  he  asks  you  to  tell  him  the 
truth  about  his  fitness  for  a  certain  office,  he  will  take 
his  medicine,  even  though  the  verdict  is  "utterly  un- 
fit." On  the  whole,  all  things  considered,  he  does  not 
any  longer  want  the  office,  since  he  is  unfit. 

But  it  takes  time  and  struggle  to  get  to  this  point. 
It  is  hard  to  squelch  the  rampant  energies  which  tell 
him  to  grab  the  office  anyway,  to  get  the  honor  and 
profit  of  it  and  cover  up  the  traces  of  his  unfitness. 
All  sorts  of  sophistries  rise  up  in  him  to  defend  his  will 
against  his  Will.  "Some  one  equally  unfit  will  get  the 
office  if  I  don't.  I  need  the  money  for  my  children's 
education.  Surely  I  must  n't  neglect  my  family."  To 
struggle  against  these  sophistries  is  the  struggle  of 
prayer.  For  the  sincerest  people  may  be  unwilling  to 
ask  advice  of  any  living  man  in  such  a  dilemma.  They 
fight  the  problem  out  "alone,"  seeking  the  truth  in  the 
presence  and  before  the  tribunal  of  the  best  they  know. 
If  there  is  a  genuine  fight,  if  the  man's  native  desire  for 
the  place  is  given  a  fair  hearing,  not  simply  brushed 
aside  without  consideration,  and  if  the  judge  is  not  in 
the  pay  of  native  desire  itself,  but  is  chosen  because 
he  represents  the  squarest  judgment  available,  then 


306  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

something  very  like  prayer  is  going  on  whether  the 
name  of  God  is  mentioned  or  not. 

If  he  is  sincere  he  means  to  find  the  Truth,  or  the 
nearest  available  approach  to  it,  and  to  correct  his 
decision  as  often  as  new  light  appears.  This  desire, 
like  all  desires  to  find  the  solid  fact  or  the  True  Course 
of  action,  is  really  an  infinite  desire.  The  presence  of 
such  an  infinite  desire  judging  our  finite  cravings  is  the 
presence  of  God  in  our  prayer. 

Petition,  then,  is  not  a  mean  whimpering  for  favors; 
it  is  the  only  honorable  and  manly  act  for  any  one  in 
doubt  about  his  belief  or  his  course  of  action.  All 
straight  thinking  means  asking  for  the  truth  and  get- 
ting the  best  answer  that  we  can  find.  Petition  is  merely 
one  expression  of  sincerity  and  of  clearness  in  thought. 

There  is  a  superficial  resemblance  between  condi- 
tional wishing  and  a  cowardly  or  a  fatalistic  submis- 
sion to  whatever  comes,  just  as  there  is  a  certain  like- 
ness between  humility  and  the  slimy  "umbleness"  of 
Uriah  Heep.  Sincerity  is  the  touchstone  which  decides. 
If  you  sincerely  want  a  true  judgment  about  the  worth 
of  your  desire  for  office,  you  will  give  fair  consideration 
to  the  possibility  that  despite  all  your  sins  and  limita- 
tions you  may  really  deserve  that  office  yourself.  Your 
crude  desire  may  be  wholly  right.  You  do  not  intend 
always  to  duck  your  head  to  others,  nor  to  crush  and 
forget  your  desires  by  keeping  busy  about  something 
else,  nor  to  avoid  the  responsibilities  and  reproaches 
of  taking  the  best  berth  in  sight.  You  want  to  be  fair 


CONFESSION:  PETITION:   PRAISE      307 

to  your  own  elemental  cravings  as  well  as  to  the  claims 
of  other  people.  Hence  prayer  does  not  always  mean 
renunciation.  It  means  perpetual  readiness  either  for 
victory  or  for  renunciation,  whichever  is  the  verdict 
of  the  best  judgment  in  sight. 

So  far  as  we  achieve  this  readiness,  we  achieve  as  deep 
a  peace  as  any  human  being  has  a  right  to.  We  are  on 
more  solid  ground  than  when  we  simply  hustled  along 
and  tried  to  forget  our  desires  for  the  much  coveted  or 
the  apparently  unattainable.  For  desires  controlled 
only  by  the  pressure  of  work  and  concentration  spring 
up  again  when  that  pressure  slackens.  Even  while  we 
are  working  they  color  our  outlook  and  tend  to  make  us 
sour,  or  at  best  merely  stoical.  After  facing  a  desire 
with  the  best  wisdom  which  we  can  reach,  after  thinking 
it  through  with  absolute  sincerity,  which  is  the  presence 
of  God,  we  can  begin  to  work  again  whole-heartedly 
because  there  are  no  longer  any  rebels  in  camp.  We 
have  expelled  both  the  doubts  about  our  right  to  success 
and  the  sullen  misgivings  about  the  need  of  our  renoun- 
cing it. 

Such  decisions  cannot  often  be  made  once  for  all. 
They  drag  along  indefinitely.  In  every  wide-awake 
person  I  think  there  must  be  such  trials,  prolonged  for 
years  because  the  evidence  is  not  all  in.  It  may  take  one 
a  long  time  to  make  sure  that  he  is  in  the  right  pro- 
fession, or  to  decide  whether  he  ought  to  give  up  all  for 
a  cause.  Here  *^the  readiness  is  all,**  —  the  readiness 
to  change  just  as  soon  as  the  evidence  is  sufficient  to 


3o8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

demand  a  change,  and  the  equal  readiness"to  keep  on 
waiting  and  hunting  for  new  light  until  sincerely  con- 
vinced, or  until  it  is  clear  that  further  indecision  is  in 
itself  a  decision  and  the  wrong  one.  Meantime  we  play 
the  game  under  the  rules  for  all  that  it  is  worth. 

This  is,  I  suppose,  one  of  the  meanings  in  St.  Paul's 
phrase,  **Pray  without  ceasing.** 

What  about  prayers  for  others?  One  may  agree  that 
there  is  petition  in  all  good  thinking,  and  petition  to  the 
Absolute  Spirit  by  all  who  aspire  in  the  spirit  of  abso- 
lute sincerity.  But  when  we  pray  for  another's  safety 
or  success,  are  we  not  asking  for  a  change  in  the  laws  of 
nature?  When  President  McKinley  was  sick,  it  cer- 
tainly seemed  as  if  some  prayed  for  him  with  a  gam- 
bler*s  superstition  that  it  could  n't  do  any  harm  and 
might  do  good.  Is  not  this  to  play  fast  and  loose  with 
sacred  things? 

Again  Christ's  words  set  us  straight.  *'  If  it  be  pos- 
sible let  this  cup  pass  from  me,**  —  or  from  him,  we  can 
say  with  equal  right,  if  we  add  as  all  Christians  must: 
**  Nevertheless  thy  will,  not  mine  bedone.**  Our  friends, 
if  we  love  them,  make  up  so  large  a  partof  ourselves  that 
our  desires  include  them.  Such  desires,  like  all  others, 
are  crude  and  need  to  be  purified  in  the  fire  of  the 
thought  of  God.  Prayer  is,  then,  a  struggle  for  mutual 
accommodation  between  one  of  my  desires  and  the 
Judge  of  all  my  desires,  a  struggle  bom  of  our  need  to 
live  at  peace  together.  Can  I  think  of  any  way  of  help* 


CONFESSION:   PETITION:  PRAISE       309 

ing  my  friend  In  his  trouble  without  making  matters 
worse,  without  neglecting  prior  claims?  If  not,  I  can 
at  any  rate  drive  out  panicky  impulses  to  despair  and 
curse ;  for  if  before  God  I  clearly  picture  the  situation 
and  my  friend  in  it,  these  childish  tendencies  drop 
away. 

In  a  crude  and  vague  form,  something  that  is  akin  to 
the  praise  of  God  celebrated  in  hymns  and  church  ser- 
vices, often  breaks  out  in  the  midst  of  rejoicings  over 
college  victories,  success  in  politics,  love,  or  war,  and 
especially  in  the  presence  of  overwhelming  natural 
beauty.  But  such  jubilations  are  often  formless  and 
thoughtless.  Even  in  Emerson's  magnificent  definition 
of  worship  as  the  ''soliloquy  of  a  beholding  and  jubi- 
lant soul,'*  the  jubilant  soul  appears  a  little  indefinite. 
It  does  not  seem  to  know  quite  what  it  is  rejoicing  about. 
Somehow  its  gratitude  and  exultation  spread  beyond 
the  event  or  spectacle  in  the  foreground,  to  "every- 
thing else."    It  is  not  merely  that 

"Morning's  at  seven, 
The  hillside  *s  dew-pearled  " ; 

but  that,  moreover, 

"God's  in  his  heaven, 
All's  right  with  the  world." 

There  is  the  same  vagueness  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
people  who  sing  hymns  with  real  fervor,  but  do  not 
notice  the  meaning  of  the  words,  or,  if  they  do,  are 
repelled.  Yet  I  believe  that  the  religious  sentiment 


3IO  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

intended  by  the  composer  of  the  hymn  does  reach  many 
who  sing  it  in  this  vague  way. 

The  weakness  of  such  enthusiasms  is  that  they  for- 
get for  the  time  the  blind  cruelties  of  nature,  the  un- 
deserved sufferings  of  children,  the  famines,  the  prisons^ 
and  the  insane  asylums.  To  deserve  the  name  of  wor- 
ship and  the  praise  of  God,  our  enthusiasm  must  be 
such  as  to  remember,  include,  and  surmount  these 
evils.  This  requirement  is  hard  to  fulfill  and  must 
compel  most  of  us  to  confess  that  we  know  very  little  of 
such  experiences.  James  Russell  Lowell  counts  but 
three  in  his  lifetime,  and  somehow  we  resent  his  arith- 
metic because  it  seems  that  so  great  an  experience 
ought  to  change  the  color  and  texture  of  one's  life  so 
radically  that  another  such  experience  would  be  as  in- 
commensurable with  the  first  as  odors  are  incommen- 
surable with  mathematical  equations. 

I  have  nothing  of  my  own  to  report  here,  though  I 
think  the  experiences  of  exaltation  and  gratitude  which 
have  come  to  me,  as  to  thousands,  in  the  hymns  and 
liturgies  of  the  Christian  Church  are  somewhat  more 
definitely  religious  than  the  expansive  enthusiasm  for 
things  in  general  which  springs  out  of  us  after  a  plunge 
of  ecstatic  delight  in  art,  nature,  love,  or  victory.  But 
any  one  who  has  been  carried  away  from  his  usual  moor- 
ings by  a  wave  of  intense  gratitude  for  opportunity, 
for  human  nobility,  or  for  beauty,  must  have  noticed 
the  painful  internal  pressure  of  the  desire  to  repay  some 
one  while  at  the  same  instant  the  impossibility  of  ade- 


CONFESSION:  PETITION:  PRAISE     311 

quately  repaying  any  one  stares  him  in  the  face.  Some- 
thing has  to  give  way  when  an  irresistible  force  meets 
anything  less  than  an  immovable  body.  We  should  be 
torn  to  pieces  or  made  silly  by  the  effort  to  express  our 
endless  gratitude,  or  to  spend  it  on  some  finite  object, 
were  we  not  dimly  or  clearly  aware  that  benefits  re- 
ceived from  any  one  of  God's  creatures  can  be  repaid 
to  any  or  all  of  the  others.  Indirectly  through  them, 
directly  through  the  praise  of  God,  we  can  utter  in 
Infinite  time  the  full  force  of  our  gratitude.  What  I 
owe  to  A,  I  can  repay  to  some  extent  through  love  and 
service  to  B,  C,  and  D.  But  how  can  I  get  even  with 
the  rainbow?  What  can  express  the  torrent  of  thank- 
fulness I  feel  to  Christ?  Worship  is  the  only  answer. 
Through  worship  the  stored  residue  of  our  unexpended 
gratitude,  all  we  could  never  pay,  all  men  ignored  when 
we  tried  to  pay  it,  flows  straight  or  deviously  back  to 
God,  who  sees  the  whole. 

By  tracing  out  the  full  meaning  of  gratitude,  I  believe 
one  might  trace  the  full  outline  of  belief  in  God  and  in 
immortality.  For  gratitude,  like  love,  is  by  birth  and 
lineage  an  infinite  emotion,  satisfied  with  no  finite  ser- 
vice or  praise,  exhausted  by  no  measure  of  effort  and 
expression.  It  implies  an  infinite  object  and  an  infinite 
life^as  one  end  of  a  stick  implies  another.  Meantime 
inarticulate  gratitude  is  tolerable  only  because  we  are 
aware,  vaguely  or  less  vaguely,  that  some  one  under- 
stands and  receives  what  we  cannot  express  in  word  01 
deed.  Without  that  awareness  gratitude  would  be  like 


312  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

a  wild  beast  in  our  breasts.  In  worship  or  the  praise 
of  the  Almighty  and  All-comprehending  Spirit  contin- 
uous with  ours,  we  conquer  at  last  our  inarticulateness 
and  are  relieved  for  the  time  of  our  burden. 

By  overflowing  enthusiasm  and  by  gratitude,  then, 
we  are  enticed  near  to  the  shores  of  prayer,  and  no 
human  being  can  ever  deny  to  another  the  right  to 
believe  that  in  some  moment  of  joy  and  thanksgiving 
he  has  actually  landed  and  knelt. 

Reverence  is  a  familiar  and  manly  emotion  and  few 
are  ashamed  to  confess  it;  yet  it  stops  this  side  of  wor- 
ship only  when  it  is  too  shy  and  timid  to  recognize  its 
own  thinly  disguised  meaning.  Take  it  for  a  moment 
from  the  other  fellow's  point  of  view.  No  one  can  stand 
reverence  paid  to  himself  or  fail  to  see  that  the  billet 
is  addressed  to  some  one  else  and  by  a  most  lovable 
blunder  delivered  at  the  wrong  house. 

**  Farther  up  the  same  road  —  in  fact  an  infinite  dis- 
tance from  here,"  one  must  call  out  to  the  messenger. 
"Your  direction  is  all  right,  and  I  know  the  Person 
whom  you  are  after,  in  fact  I  am  a  poor  relation  of  his, 
but  He  does  n't  live  here." 

Yet  we  reverence  others.  Can  we,  then,  go  on  pur- 
posely paying  unto  others  that  which  we  know  could 
never  conceivably  be  paid  to  ourselves  without  blas- 
phemy? Every  one  of  us  knows  that  no  amount  of 
added  virtue  or  subtracted  sin  would  make  him  fit  to 
receive  reverence.  For  the  trouble  is  not  with  our  par- 
ticular incapacity  and  littleness,  but  with  the  inherent 


CONFESSION:  PETITION:  PRAISE      313 

unfitness  of  any  finite  being  to  contain  the  outpourings 
of  an  infinite  impulse.  We  must  pass  it  along  as  we  do 
gratitude  expressed  to  ourselves ;  we  pass  it  to  others  so 
far  as  we  can,  but  chiefly  and  most  directly  to  God. 

Any  of  us  not  wholly  devoid  of  modesty  and  curiosity 
must  sometimes  have  been  set  to  wondering  at  the  pro- 
fusion of  valuable  goods  which  nature  leaves  at  our 
door,  obviously  not  meant  for  us.  How  disorderly  and 
capricious,  it  seems,  on  nature^s  part !  How  humiliating 
and  embarrassing  for  us  to  find  at  the  breakfast- table 
a  crown  we  are  quite  incapable  of  wearing,  to  find  in  the 
sunset  a  poem  we  cannot  read,  to  have  gratitude  given 
us  in  a  smile  for  work  we  never  performed.  Rewards 
fifty  sizes  too  large  for  us,  five  hundred  times  greater 
than  what  we  bought  and  paid  for,  are  delivered  to 
us  daily. 

That  sunset,  that  magnificent  thunderstorm.  What 
are  they  really  meant  for?  Whom  or  what  do  they  help 
in  the  struggle  for  existence?  They  were  there  before 
man  came  on  earth.  They  surely  do  not  fit  me;  they 
humiliate  and  overwhelm  me.  They  are  meant  for 
some  one  else,  yet  I,  too,  understand  a  bit  of  them.  They 
are  not  addressed  to  any  being  who  contradicts  my 
aspirations. 

Tsay  that  they  are  aimed,  like  all  reverence,  toward 
God.  They  hit  you  and  me  on  the  way,  because  we  are 
on  the  path  to  Him. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

COMMUNION:  THE  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER:  SUMMARY 

The  gaucherie  and  shamefacedness,  the  scorn  or  re- 
volt of  the  up-to-date  man  invited  to  take  part  in  wor- 
ship, reaches  a  climax  when  we  approach  communion. 
Rapture,  ecstasy,  and  the  mystic  states  associated 
with  them,  are  to  the  minds  of  most  of  us  either  the 
fakes  and  hysteria  of  ** mediums"  or  the  fanaticism  of 
dancing  dervishes.  Part  of  this  instinctive  discredit  is 
due  to  our  distrust  of  emotionalism  and  all  that  goes 
with  it.  Good  citizens  are  alarmed  at  the  idea  of  being 
"carried  away"  by  music,  acting,  athletics,  politics, 
religion,  or  anything  else.  '*When  was  Lincoln  ever 
carried  away?"  they  will  ask  you.  "Did  n't  he  chew 
his  straw,  smile  or  frown  a  little,  tell  a  story  or  two, 
and  maintain  his  steady  composure  throughout  all  the 
crises  of  his  maturer  life?" 

I  do  not  know  how  far  this  tradition  does  justice  to 
Lincoln,  but  in  any  case  I  think  it  represents  a  trun- 
cated ideal  of  a  man.  The  person  who  cannot  be  "car- 
ried away"  by  any  music  is  to  be  pitied,  not  admired, 
on  that  account.  He  probably  lacks  a  musical  ear  or 
an  acquaintance  with  the  human  experience  which 
music  portrays.  He  is  blighted  and  numb  like  one  who 
cannot  fall  in  love.  But  if  one  is  more  fortunately 
endowed  on  the  emotional  side  and  has  never  become 


COMMUNION:  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER    315 

sour  and  hlascj  then  he  can  be  rapt  and  entranced  by 
art  as  much  as  any  devotee  by  religion.  He  will  look 
as  ridiculous  and  behave  as  unsocially  as  a  dervish ;  or 
he  may  look  utterly  passive  and  dreamy,  although  in 
truth  his  outward  *' passivity"  is  a  mask  concealing 
intense  activity,  "like  the  motionlessness  of  the  rapid 
wheel  or  the  ease  and  silence  of  light."  ^ 

Any  one  who  cares  for  music  is  able  to  follow  sym- 
pathetically, even  if  he  cannot  share,  the  accounts  of 
the  religious  experience  called  "communion  with  God.*' 
He  knows  what  is  meant  by  an  intense  but  "effortless 
attention."  It  is  a  concentrated  mental  activity  com- 
prehending a  multitude  of  present  facts  without  drop- 
ping stitches  by  the  way,  coursing  over  wide  realms  of 
memory  and  anticipation  as  people  do  when  in  great 
and  sudden  danger.  In  this  conspectus,  one  gets  be- 
yond trying;  one  wakes  to  an  experience  that  is  not  less 
but  more  definite  than  our  ordinary  consciousness. 

Of  course  such  states  of  entrancement  are  justified 
only  by  their  results.  Partial  intoxication  with  ether 
or  nitrous  oxide  gas  produces  moods  which  feel  much  the 
same  as  religious  ecstasy ;  but  they  differ  in  that  they 
have  no  beneficial  or  lasting  effects.  If  we  do  not  reap 
new  explanations,  new  clews  to  action,  new  powers  of 
self-devotion  and  self-control,  new  appreciation  of 
others'  strength  and  of  our  own  weakness,  then  our 
worship  has  been  fruitless ;  in  the  end  it  may  degener- 
ate into  self-indulgence,  a  wallowing  in  emotion  for 

*  Hocking,  p.  384. 


3i6  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

emotion's  sake  or  a  slavish  engrossment  in  details  o! 
habitual  rite. 

Though  nothing  can  be  plainer  or  more  terrible  than 
sin,  the  shameful  and  intentional  violation  of  our  own 
standards,  it  is  now  fashionable  to  ignore  it.  This  will 
not  do.  The  attempt  to  dilute  and  modify  sin  by  call- 
ing it  ** unintentional  mistake'*  or  "an  infraction  of  un- 
conventional rules"  means  muddleheadedness  or  so- 
phistry. No  one  loses  the  consciousness  of  sin  unless 
he  loses  it  on  purpose,  that  is,  by  sinning  until  he  has 
calloused  himself. 

In  prayer  we  seek  forgiveness  for  our  sins.  But  what 
can  that  forgiveness  mean?  Christ  has  told  us  to  look 
for  its  meaning  in  our  own  struggle  to  forgive  those  who 
trespass  against  us.  To  forgive  those  who  have  wronged 
us  is  not  to  forget  the  injury.  For  some  people  forget- 
ting is  as  easy  as  it  is  inane;  for  others  it  is  impossible; 
for  all  it  is  valueless  or  harmful.  In  forgiveness  there  is 
always  struggle ;  in  forgetting  there  may  be  none.  We 
struggle  to  regain  through  forgiveness  our  regard  or 
affection  despite  the  culpable  weakness  which  we 
recognize.  "  Nevertheless  "  is  the  crucial  and  victorious 
word  in  forgiveness,  as  it  was  in  Christ's  prayer  that 
the  cup  might  pass  from  him.  Our  affection  is  not  un- 
changed, but  nevertheless  we  make  a  new  venture  of 
hope  and  faith. 

So  Christians  believe  that  the  world-spirit  gives  us^ 
another  fair  chance  whenever  we  sincerely  repent  of  our 


COMMUNION:  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER    317 

6ins.  This  is  a  miracle  like  all  forgiveness,  for  it  implies 
that  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect  are  not  the  only  fac- 
tors in  the  workshop  where  character  is  moulded.  Ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  we  get  **an  eye 
for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,*'  since  action  and 
reaction  are  equal  and  opposite;  every  sin  leaves  an 
indelible  mark  not  to  be  wiped  out  by  repentance  and 
reform.  This  is  true  as  long  as  we  deal  with  the  arith- 
metic of  finite  quantities  and  closed  circuits.  A  ball 
batted  against  the  walls  of  a  closed  rectangular  room 
takes  mathematically  predictable  directions,  at  veloci- 
ties that  depend  on  the  rigidity  of  the  walls,  the  elas- 
ticity of  the  ball,  and  the  force  with  which  it  is  driven. 

But  by  forgiveness  an  unmeasurable  power  is  dis- 
covered. We  may  cut  away  virtue  from  character  by 
sin,  yet,  through  the  infinite  quality  of  forgiving  love, 
we  may  have  left  a  chance  of  achievement  still  infinite. 
A  similar  miracle  happens  when  one  cuts  off  a  bit  of  a 
line.  In  the  piece  which  has  been  cut  away  there  was 
room  for  many  points,  yet  in  the  piece  which  is  left 
there  is  still  an  infinite  opportunity  to  find  more 
points.  So  for  love,  even  for  our  human  love,  there 
are  still  infinite  ''points**  to  be  found  in  a  person  whom 
we  forgive,  even  though  by  sin  some  possibilities  have 
been  cut  away. 

This  miraculous  fertility  in  the  infinite  resources  is 
opened  to  us  sinners  only  by  the  sincerity  of  our  prayer 
for  forgiveness,  the  sincerity  of  our  repentance.  For 
sincerity  has  in  it  always  an  infinite  quality  like  that 


3i8  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

of  love  and  reverence.  It  may  be  an  absolute  sincerity, 
prepared  for  endless  trial  and  sacrifice.  One  who  sin- 
cerely devotes  himself  to  the  service  of  truth  wants 
truth  at  whatever  cost  of  labor,  humiliation,  and  re- 
form. He  is  prepared  with  an  answer  to  all  possible  ob- 
jectors, however  numerous,  each  plausibly  presenting 
him  as  a  substitute  for  truth  something  **  just  as  good 
for  less  money."  Sincere  repentance  is  likewise  infinite 
because  there  is  no  end  to  its  sorrow  and  no  limitation 
to  what  it  is  ready  to  perform  in  the  way  of  expiation. 
If  to  any  right  demand  for  sacrifice  or  humiliation  a 
repentant  soul  can  answer,  "Ah,  no,  not  that,  any- 
thing but  that,"  then  his  repentance  is  so  far  insincere 
and  forgiveness  is  so  far  helpless. 

Absolute  obedience  is  a  virtue  not  highly  prized  in 
America  to-day.  But  whatever  be  our  belief  as  to  the 
need  of  it  in  other  fields,  there  can  be  no  question  that 
absolute  forgiveness  presupposes  absolute  obedience. 
If  we  are  to  be  forgiven  we  must  be  beaten  to  a  stand- 
still: "Lord,  here  am  I:  what  wouldst  thou  that  I 
should  do?"  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  attained  this  spirit 
and  trained  his  followers  in  it. 

"A  certain  poor  and  infirm  man  came  unto  him.  On 
whom  having  much  compassion,  St.  Francis  began  to 
speak  to  one  of  his  followers  of  the  other*s  poverty  and 
sickness;  but  his  follower  said  to  St.  Francis:  *  Brother 
it  is  true  that  he  seems  poor  enough ;  but  it  may  be  that 
in  this  whole  province  there  is  not  one  who  wishes  more 
to  be  rich  than  he.'    And  being  at  once  severely  re- 


COMMUNION:  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER    319 

proved  by  St.  Francis  he  confessed  his  fault";  —  the 
fault  of  uncharitably  imputing  sin.  Then  comes  the  test 
of  true  repentance.  "Blessed  Francis  said  unto  him: 
'Wilt  thou  do  for  this  sin  the  penance  which  I  shall  bid 
thee?*  Who  answered  (in  unconditional  obedience), 
*I  will  do  it  willingly.'  Then  Francis  said  unto  him, 
'  Go  and  put  off  thy  tunic  and  throw  thyself  naked  at 
the  poor  man's  feet,  and  tell  him  how  thou  hast  sinned 
against  him  in  speaking  evil  of  him  in  that  matter  and 
ask  him  to  pray  for  thee.*  He  went,  therefore,  and  did 
all  the  things  which  blessed  Francis  had  told  him." 

We  moderns  are  proud  to  say  that  we  owe  absolute 
obedience  only  to  our  consciences,  but  I  wonder  how 
many  of  us  possess  a  conscience  that  is  quite  uninflu- 
enced by  a  desire  to  be  easy  on  the  culprit  whom  it 
judges,  a  conscience  that  is  as  ready  as  St.  Francis  was 
to  demand  of  us  the  expiation  that  really  expiates? 

The  forgiveness  of  sin  is  perhaps  the  whole  of  the 
answer  to  prayer,  its  all-inclusive  result.  For  the  at- 
tainment of  spiritual  peace,  the  quenching  of  uncer- 
tainty, the  freeing  of  shackled  powers,  and  all  that  one 
could  hope  to  obtain  through  prayer,  can,  I  suppose, 
be  properly  included  under  forgiveness.  That  we  are  as 
dull,^s  habit-bound,  and  unoriginal  as  we  are  is  doubt- 
less largely  our  own  fault.  If  so,  the  divine  forgiveness 
will  mean  a  burst  of  originality  in  thought,  word,  and 
deed. 

To  be  original,  in  musical  composition,  in  scientific 


320  WHAT  MEN   LIVE  BY 

hypothesis,  or  in  the  control  of  one's  temper  is  a  mir- 
acle, like  all  novelty.  Whatever  is  really  new,  is  some- 
thing uncommensurable  with  former  experiences,  un- 
predictable as  the  face  of  a  new  baby.  One  veritably 
original  thing  each  man  does.  He  gets  born,  and  the 
mother's  assurance  that  there  never  was  such  a  baby 
as  this  is  literally  and  absolutely  correct.  Every  birth 
is  a  miraculous  birth,  because  no  two  individuals  are 
alike,  and  novelty  is  always  inexplicable.  The  birth  of 
a  new  thought,  a  new  habit,  a  new  leaf,  a  new  day,  is 
just  as  miraculous,  because  its  newness  is  the  one  thing 
that  all  law  and  all  previous  experience  cannot  explain. 

When  saint  or  sinner  asks  with  all  his  might:  What 
shall  I  do  next?  What  does  this  puzzling  experience 
mean?  What  will  best  express  this  idea?  —  he  is  not 
reaching  for  a  dictionary  or  thesaurus  in  which  to  find 
ready-made  what  he  needs.  He  is  reaching  for  the  truth 
and  the  right.  Ultimately  he  is  reaching  for  God's 
help,  and  when  his  question  is  answered  he  gets  all  he 
can  hear  of  the  answer  to  prayer. 

Intense  wondering,  determined  groping  after  the 
truth,  seeks  the  new,  not  for  novelty's  sake,  but  be- 
cause nothing  else  is  true  to  this  minute's  and  this  in- 
dividual's need.  We  want  the  new  in  order  to  save 
our  lives,  to  save  us  from  dying  away  into  habits  of 
vegetative  existence ;  to  save  us  from  petty  picking  and 
stealing  among  the  trite  old  words  and  deeds  which 
lumber  up  the  world. 

In  composing  music  to  a  song,  if  a  melody  does  n't 


COMMUNION:  ANSWER  TO  PRAYER     321 

come  to  one  ready-made,  by  the  free  and  miraculoul 
grace  of  the  universe,  one  dives  again  and  again  for 
the  pearl  of  sincerity.  "What  do  those  verses  mean  to 
iTie?  What  is  the  music  that  properly  belongs  with 
them?" 

But  what  does  one  dive  into?  In  what  direction  does 
one  stare  when  he  is  striving  for  the  true  musical  ex- 
pression of  a  verse?  Surely  he  is  staring  into  the  face 
of  the  deepest  truth  he  knows  or  can  reach.  The  verit- 
ably right  phrase  is  the  one  he  peers  after.  We  are  here 
vitally  interested  not  so  much  in  what  he  attains  as  in 
what  he  faces,  —  the  infinite  vista  down  which  he 
directs  the  infinite  longing  of  his  gaze.  Surely  he  is 
straining  towards  the  Origin  of  all  things.  He  is  plead- 
ing with  the  Creator  for  his  one  mite  of  creativeness ! 
He  is  trying  to  prostrate  himself  before  the  Absolute 
Truth  upon  this  theme,  for  that  Truth  is  all  that  he 
wishes  to  express. 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  no  prayer  for  light  or  strength 
does  anything  else  than  this.  As  one  struggles  in  ear- 
nest talk  to  hear  the  new  from  one*s  comrade,  and  to 
find  the  accurate  phrase  for  one's  own  meaning,  one 
stares  with  the  mind  as  intently  as  one  fixes  the  muscles 
and  the  eyes.  Then  what  does  the  eye  of  the  mind  seek 
to  envisage?  What  else  but  the  invisible  Truth  in 
which  men  who  seek  with  all  their  heart  find  more  than 
they  deserve? 

Here,  then,  is  another  way  of  obedience  to  Paul's 
**pray  without  ceasing."     The  effort  to  be  original 


322  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

defeats  itself,  but  the  effort  to  be  sincere,  the  desire  to 
say  what  one  means  without  too  shamefully  wronging 
the  beauty  of  the  truth  that  one  looks  off  to  on  the 
mind's  horizon,  is  a  perpetual  seeking  of  God*s  pres- 
ence, a  prayer  ever  joyfully  renewed. 

Originality  of  thought  and  speech  is  perhaps  the 
least  important  of  the  sincerities  which  are  the  goal  of 
all  earnestness.  To  brace  up  one's  standards  in  any  sor- 
riest corner  of  their  tattered  and  disreputable  substance 
is  to  be  original,  and  that  in  the  most  arduous  and 
honorable  way.  Why  should  n*t  a  man  stop  beating 
his  wife's  long-suffering  soul  with  the  cudgels  of  his 
inconsiderateness?  To  be  more  decent  to  her  would  be 
a  perfectly  original  work  of  art,  doubtless  hung  upon 
the  line  in  the  gallery  of  man's  humorous  or  pathetic 
approximations  to  the  beauty  of  holiness. 

The  need  of  worship  reflects  an  intense  weariness 
with  what  is  old  and  habitual,  a  hunger  for  what  is 
radically  new  and  untried.  In  the  pain  of  spiritual 
fatigue,  it  is  the  *' impulse  for  spiritual  self-preserva- 
tion," and  renews  the  worth  of  life  as  we  see  it,  by  re- 
minding us  of  our  ultimate  Good. 

The  conscious  approaches  to  worship,  like  the  effort 
to  dispel  prejudice  in  scientific  and  dispassionate  judg- 
ment, are  largely  negative.  By  beauty,  joy  or  sorrow 
or  danger,  we  are  detached  from  the  habits  and  associa- 
tions which,  like  the  shell  of  a  crustacean,  both  register 
our  progress  and  limit  it. 


COMMUNION:  ANSWER  TO   PRAYER    323 

In  worship  we  seek  to  know  our  God  by  absorption 
and  contagion,  as  we  catch  the  spirit  of  a  command- 
ing gesture,  or  feel  the  sweep  of  a  national  crisis.  We 
throw  ourselves  into  worship,  as  we  dive  into  the  ocean, 
confident  of  its  well-tested  power  to  lift  and  refresh 
us,  but  no  longer  balancing,  sustaining,  or  directing 
ourselves  by  step  and  step  as  we  do  on  the  land  of 
ordinary  thought  and  action. 

The  answer  to  prayer  is  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
conditioned  by  the  sincerity  of  our  repentance,  and  in 
a  heightened  power  of  fresh  or  original  vision,  which  is 
the  servant  of  reform. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


ALL  TOGETHER 


I  HAVE  sketched  four  pictures  of  "real  life/'  the  world 
of  healing,  refreshment,  and  strength.  I  hope  they  do 
not  all  look  alike.  The  sharp  contrasts,  the  vivid  in- 
dividuality of  each  should  never  be  merged.  For  in 
all  the  range  of  creation  nothing  is  more  vitally  inter- 
esting than  its  differences  of  mood  and  tone,  of  light 
and  dark,  of  right  and  wrong.  In  fact,  there  is  nothing 
comparable  to  the  fascination  of  these  contrasts  except 
the  opposite,  —  their  unity. 

Most  people  that  I  meet  or  read  about  seem  to  find 
the  contrasts  more  obvious  than  their  unity.  The 
talkative,  plastic,  sociable  people  are  amazed  at  the 
silence  of  the  laboratory  and  the  mechanical  rigidity 
of  the  workshop.  Serious  professors  and  mill  treasur- 
ers look  askance  at  play  and  art,  or  revile  it  as  foolish 
frivolity;  the  clergy,  who  have  been  beaten  into  tolera- 
tion, are  wistful  and  puzzled  at  the  thought  of  the  total 
inefficiency  and  uselessness  of  whist,  chess,  or  polar 
exploration.  Most  of  all  unreasonable  and  blank  seems 
to  most  modems  the  worshiping  mystic  and  his  retreat 
from  the  world.  To  workers,  players,  and  lovers  alike 
this  monkish  withdrawal  from  the  living  interchange  of 
society  and  of  nature  seems  incomprehensible,  —  at 
best  something  to  be  borne  with  a  shrug  or  a  pitying 
smile  for  its  mediaevalism. 


ALL  TOGETHER  325 

Thus  we  are  split  into  camps  and  cliques  which  are 
perhaps  more  dangerous  in  their  smiling  or  sneering 
toleration  than  they  would  be  in  open  warfare.  For 
war  might  bring  about  a  contact  close  enough  for  mu- 
tual comprehension — in  the  end.  Toleration  may  mean 
a  lazy  acquiescence  in  contradictions  that  ought  to 
arouse.  We  may  bear  the  conflict  between  what  I  think 
right  and  what  you  think  wrong  so  equably,  so  peace- 
ably, so  amiably  that  we  come  at  last  to  tolerate  a 
similar  conflict  within  our  own  breasts,  —  which  is  dis- 
aster and  damnation.  When  my  act  says  ** right"  and 
my  conscience  says  "wrong,"  and  I  all  the  while  look 
tolerantly  down  upon  the  conflict  as  from  some  height 
of  Olympian  calm,  —  then  God  have  mercy  on  my 
soul!  Even  the  peaceful  toleration  of  a  similar  differ- 
ence between  my  standards  and  my  neighbor's  is  dan- 
gerous unless  it  is  a  truce  or  a  pause  in  prayer  for  light. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  camps  and  cliques.  We  do 
not  march  behind  fighting  banners  of  play,  of  love,  or 
of  worship,  as  organized  labor  and  organized  capital 
march  and  countermarch  behind  their  standards.  We 
sit  in  little  offices,  shops,  and  kitchens,  content  not 
merely  to  mind  our  own  business,  but  mindlessly  to 
ignore  its  kinship  with  other  business.  We  each  keep 
our  eyes  and  our  minds  at  home.  The  result  is  that  the 
devotees  of  Work,  Play,  Love,  and  Worship  are  sus- 
picious of  each  other.  They  do  not  touch  shoulders 
or  act  together  as  a  team. 

I  should  be  sorry  to  aggravate  these  puzzles  or  to 


326  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

sharpen  still  further  these  divergences  and  mutual 
suspicions.  For  just  because  Work,  Play,  Love,  and 
Worship  diverge  so  sharply  each  from  each,  they  must 
have  a  common  root.  Things  can  only  differ  when  they 
differ  in  something.  Races  differ  in  color,  habits,  morals, 
and  cookery  because  they  all  possess  color,  habits, 
morals,  and  cookery.  So  it  is  with  the  sustaining 
powers  by  which  men  live.  All  varieties  spring  from 
likeness.  Hence  it  is  the  task  of  any  one  who  exploits 
the  variety  to  pounce  speedily  upon  the  unity,  —  if  he 
can.   What  is  it,  then,  to  live? 

To  live  is  to  talk  with  the  world.  Work,  Play,  Love, 
and  Worship  are  four  good  ways  of  keeping  up  the 
conversation.  The  experiments  of  the  working  scien- 
tist or  philosopher  are  the  questions  which  he  puts  to 
reality.  The  answers  come  in  the  form  of  reactions, 
results,  or  readings.  The  dialogue  need  not  be  noisy, 
but  it  must  be  active.  A  science  which  cannot  think 
of  a  question  or  get  an  answer  when  face  to  face  with 
nature  is  unproductive.  Even  a  working  hypothesis 
must  earn  its  pay  by  asking  more  and  more  insistently 
for  the  answer  called  verification. 

In  agriculture,  mining,  or  navigation  it  is  still  question 
and  answer  that  busy  us,  —  but  now  in  a  rougher, 
noisier  exchange.  We  wrestle  with  the  elemental,  ex- 
changing blows  or  benefits,  issuing  commands  and 
watching  for  signs,  like  an  officer,  or  more  often  like 
a  private. 


ALL  TOGETHER  327 

All  the  earth  plays  this  game.  Strategic  moves  (like 
chess  play)  are  made  by  the  bacteria  as  they  search  out 
our  weakest  tissue  and  by  the  bacteriologist  who  tries 
to  foil  their  attack.  Within  a  decade  Paul  Ehlich 
put  a  question  to  nature  606  times,  each  time  in  slightly 
different  language : —  "Will  you  or  you  or  you,"  he  said 
to  one  newly  made  chemical  compound  after  another, 
*'  carry  arsenic  in  lethal  dose  to  my  enemy  the  treponema 
pallidum,  without  harming  on  your  way  any  human 
cell?" 

At  the  606th  attempt  he  heard  an  answer  that  suited 
him  better  than  any  nature  had  given  him  thus  far; 
the  great  drug  salvarsan  was  christened  forthwith. 

The  army  of  science  has  many  men  listening  for 
answers  to  the  questions  asked  by  each.  Sometimes 
the  answer  to  your  question  is  heard  after  your  death 
by  a  youngster  with  keener  hearing.  Sometimes  a 
friend  (or  an  enemy)  with  better  gift  for  language  will 
reshape  your  question,  modify  your  experiment  so 
that  a  clear  "yes"  or  "no"  comes  back  from  nature, 
hitherto  quite  silent. 

But  the  natural  sciences  are  no  more  talkative  than 
the  rest.  All  good  thinking,  all  faithful  research, 
whether  in  history,  philosophy,  mathematics,  econo- 
mics, or  any  other  branch  of  knowledge,  takes  the  form 
of  question  and  answer,  as  it  interrogates  the  material 
which  it  studies.  To  sit  speechless  before  nature  i3 
to  drowse;  to  ask  questions  that  find  no  answer  is  to 
fail.   Often  the  tiie-d'tBte  is  hard  to  maintain.  The 


328  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

student  runs  dry  of  topics.  He  hears'  no  answer  and 
wonders  (like  the  worshiper)  whether  any  answer  is  on 
its  way.  Or  he  fails  (like  the  uninspired  artist)  to  put 
his  desire  into  definite  form. 

This  is  natural!  and  familiar  enough  in  the  labora- 
tory or  the  studio,  as  it  is  at  the  breakfast- table.  But 
table  talk  is  simpler  than  art  or  science  because  the 
great  conversations  of  work  and  play  allow  us  no  grace- 
ful retirement.  No  genteel  silence  will  do.  For  all  the 
live  forces  in  the  world  are  chattering  away.  Money 
talks ;  music  speaks ;  the  vessel  answers  your  hand  upon 
the  wheel ;  the  soil  responds  or  fails  to  respond  to  your 
cultivation.  To  be  deaf  or  dumb  is  to  be  entranced, 
stage-struck,  or  paralyzed. 

Out  of  this  slough,  training  and  the  inspiration  of 
others*  example  are  the  best  roads.  We  must  be 
trained  for  all  sorts  of  intercourse  with  our  world, 
taught  to  play,  to  love,  or  to  pray,  as  well  as  to  work. 
Our  shyness  in  the  give-and-take  which  is  life,  can  be 
trained  out  of  us  by  hard  knocks,  our  coldness  mitigated 
by  the  radiant  warmth  of  good  friends.  But  we  must 
anticipate  our  dangers  and  be  fore-armed.  To  all  of 
us  comes  the  temptation  to  be  less  than  alive,  to  pull 
out  of  the  talk,  to  stop  listening,  or  to  go  on  using  the 
same  phrases  long  after  the  poor,  bored  universe  has 
ceased  to  attend.  That  is  a  weak  game,  a  brutalizing 
job,  a  languid  affection,  a  formalistic  worship  full  of 
"vain  repetitions  such  as  the  heathens  use,"  or  "those 
wanton  revels  in  mere  perception  which  are  at  present 


ALL  TOGETHER  329 

the  bane  of  our  art,  of  our  literature,  of  our  social 
ideals  and  of  our  religion."  ^ 

If  it  is  true  that  initiative  and  response  are  the  neces- 
sary framework  of  all  life,  then  the  sociable  woman  with 
a  silent  husband  may  take  comfort  in  the  thought  that 
perhaps  he  is  as  loquacious  as  any  one,  but  in  his  own 
way.  Conversation  in  its  ordinary  form,  she  then 
perceives,  is  but  one  of  the  living  world's  perpetual 
interchanges.  There  is  a  similar  give-and-take  in  the 
games  her  husband  enjoys,  in  the  business  that  seems 
to  submerge  him,  and  in  the  wilderness  where  he  takes 
his  solitary  vacation.  If  she  and  all  of  us  can  believe 
that  our  different  roads  converge  toward  one  goal, 
we  are  less  lonely  each  upon  his  own. 

Of  special  importance,  as  I  believe,  is  a  reiteration 
of  the  ancient  truth  that  the  solitary  worshiper  or 
ascetic  leaves  men  and  nature  behind  him  because  he 
is  seeking  better  company.  Of  course  worship  is  not  al- 
ways solitary,  but  there  are  times  when  the  conditions 
for  intimacy  of  appeal  and  clarity  of  response  which 
man  just  then  needs  are  not  to  be  had  in  the  parlor,  in 
the  market,  or  even  in  a  church.  Hence  he  forsakes  the 
world  in  order  to  get  closer  to  the  World.  He  is  not 
doing  something  wholly  different  from  his  busy,  play- 
ful f  and  sociable  brethren.  He  is  in  touch  with  reality 
and  with  facts.  He  aims  to  be  as  busy  as  the  laborer, 
as  creative  as  the  artist,  and  more  ardent  than  the 
lover.  Yet  he  does  not  attempt  any  fusion  of  these 
•  Josiah  Royce,  The  Problem  of  Christianiiy,  vol.  n,  p.  163. 


330  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

separate  activities.  He  seeks,  above  all,  to  orient  him* 
self  and  to  get  his  sailing  orders  before  he  goes  farther. 
For  he  is  going  farther.  Unlimited  and  exclusive  wor- 
ship is  to  him  an  abomination  like  unmitigated  drudg- 
ery, perpetual  diversion,  or  unremitting  domesticity. 

Yet  worship  is  not  strictly  correlative  with  work, 
play,  and  love,  for  it  balances  and  supports  them 
all.  Without  them  worship  would  have,  so  far  as  I  see, 
no  significance.  But  each  and  all  of  them  tends  toward 
spiritual  fatigue  from  which  worship  alone  can  revive 
us.  I  will  not  say  that  worship  is  the  climax  and  cul- 
mination of  all  that  is  most  active  in  daily  life.  For  God 
can  be  reached  through  many  channels  outside  wor- 
ship. But  to  it  man  returns  from  all  other  activities 
as  he  comes  back  to  his  home,  —  the  common  goal  and 
starting-point  of  every  fresh  endeavor. 

Thus  far  I  have  found  in  all  the  deeds  by  which  men 
live,  one  salient  feature,  —  the  responsive  interplay 
between  purpose  and  fulfillment,  between  initiative 
and  return.  But  this  exchange  is  not  a  mere  shuttling 
of  rigid  materials  across  the  world's  loom.  In  all  forms 
of  vital  reciprocity  something  new  emerges.  Even  the 
shuttle  is  not  a  mere  shuttle.  It  helps  to  create  a  fab- 
ric. So  our  shuttling  questions,  conversations,  barter- 
ings,  experiments,  political  actions  and  reactions,  must 
build  something  if  they  are  to  give  us  new  spirit  and 
take  up  our  spirit  into  themselves.  Service  given  and 
knowledge  received  must  be  continuous  and  construe- 


ALL  TOGETHER  331 

tive,  else  they  are  no  better  than  idleness  or  sleep.  Con- 
versation becomes  gossipy  and  desultory  unless  talkers 
pursue  some  quest  together. 

Look  at  the  negative  side  of  this  idea.  A  desperate 
consciousness  of  anguish  or  of  oppression  is  no  life- 
giver,  because  it  is  static  or  revolves  in  a  circle.  It 
may  be  as  full  of  sensation,  of  passion,  of  intimacy  and 
intensity  as  the  trashiest  modem  novel  or  the  yellow- 
est modern  journalism,  and  yet  contain  as  little  of 
truth  or  worth.  Passion  cannot  hear.  Anguish  cannot 
speak.  Neither  can  create,  though  both  are  often 
linked,  more  or  less  unconsciously,  with  some  greater 
power  which  makes  them  take  part  in  creation.  Pad- 
erewski  strikes  the  piano  with  the  fire  of  passion,  but 
without  its  blunders  and  deafness.  If  he  struck  with 
his  fist  instead  of  with  his  fingers  we  should  get  the 
fruits  of  passion  pure. 

Is  it  not  true  that  we  rightly  desire  to  abolish  from 
the  earth  whatever  lacks  creative  interchange?  I  re- 
cently heard  a  patient  declare  that  not  for  anything 
would  he  have  been  deprived  of  the  experience  given 
him  by  a  year's  illness,  not  yet  ended.  But  what  we 
wotddwiWmgly  be  deprived  of,  what  we  strive  to  banish, 
is  the  sick  man's  desperate  or  fruitless  struggle  with 
overmastering  pain,  the  immigrant's  forlorn,  bewil- 
dered wanderings  in  an  ill-managed  port  of  entry,  the 
prisoner's  soul-numbing  walk  up  and  down  his  cell, 
the  child's  suffering  under  punishment  which  he  believes 
unjust  or  cruel,  the  fruitless  aridity  of  the  desert,  the 


332  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

torpor  of  the  tropics,  the  paralyzing  cramp  of  poverty, 
the  exhaustion  of  industrial  overstrain. 

The  four  essentials  which  I  have  been  describing 
throughout  this  book  are  united,  then,  by  their  root. 
They  are  rooted  in  one  deep  fact  which  seems  to  be  as 
fundamental  in  the  natural  as  in  the  spiritual  world. 
They  all  create  something  new  out  of  an  interchange 
which  can  be  called  give-and-take,  initiative  and  re- 
sponse, adaptation  to  environment  and  by  environ- 
ment, or  simply  conversation.  They  all  sprout  sym- 
bols, like  leaves,  as  soon  as  they  grow  up,  and  through 
these  they  draw  their  nourishment.  This  means  that 
absolute  faithfulness,  in  work,  in  play,  or  in  love,  brings 
us  into  contact  with  God  whether  we  know  it  or  not. 
Whatever  we  do  **for  its  own  sake**  looking  to  no 
ulterior  reward,  we  are  treating  in  fact  as  a  symbol 
of  what-is-best-worth-while-in-the- world.  Ultimately, 
if  we  think  it  through,  this  means  what  our  forefathers 
meant  by  God. 

The  divinity  of  work,  play,  and  art  is  in  their  abso- 
lute faithfulness,  their  care  for  a  degree  of  perfection 
which  cannot  be  recognized  or  rewarded  by  men.  The 
same  faithfulness  expresses  much  of  the  religion  which 
is  love ;  beyond  that,  the  endless  power  of  forgiveness 
that  is  in  any  pure  devotion,  points  to  its  share  in  the 
infinite  fertility  and  resource  of  the  divine.  To  be  con- 
scious of  the  divinity  which  is  directly  continuous 
with  our  own  effort  whenever  we  do  our  best,  en- 
hances the  effort  and  the  joy  in  it.    But  the  contin- 


ALL  TOGETHER  333 

uity  and  the  contact  are  there  whether  we  recognize 
them  or  not.  We  cannot  get  away  from  God,  though 
we  can  ignore  him.  When  Him  we  fly,  He  is  the 
wings. 

Because  the  four  heroes  of  my  tale  are  thus  intimately 
related  through  their  common  ancestor  in  man's  need, 
it  is  but  natural  that  they  should  support  and  shape 
sach  other  by  their  difference  as  well  as  their  likeness, 
rhey  do  not  fuse  or  drop  their  individuality,  but  play 
into  each  other,  work  toward  each  other,  befriend 
3ne  another,  and  send  each  to  the  other's  shrine. 

Recall  some  examples  of  this  interchange.  Unsatis- 
fied with  the  best  we  can  do  at  our  work,  we  turn  (if 
ive  are  wise  and  healthy)  to  the  lessons  to  be  learned 
from  play,  —  from  Franz  Kneisel's  string  quartette, 
for  instance.  That  quartette  plays  with  the  dash,  the 
precision,  the  reserve  which  we  want  to  get  into  our 
ivork.  The  artists  in  that  quartette  have  carried  their 
nusic  through  the  laborious  and  painful  to  the  playful 
itage  before  they  let  us  hear  it.  After  the  concert 
they  will  set  to  work  again  upon  some  new  and  sterner 
task,  in  turn  to  be  mastered  and  transformed  to 
something  fit  to  play  in  public.  The  working  side  of 
ife  seems  to  belong  more  properly  in  private,  where  we 
prepare  and  whet  ourselves  for  play.  Every  new  game 
Dr  art  requires  work  before  we  can  learn  it.  The  shape- 
ess  silly  games  which  can  be  mastered  without  labor 
md  cannot  be  improved  by  practice,  are  fit  only  for 


334  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

the  feeble-minded  or  for  the  feeble-minded  hours  near 
to  sleep. 

Love,  like  beauty  and  play,brightens  and  strengthens 
us  for  work.  We  labor  to  deserve  the  miraculous  gift. 
We  work  to  prove  our  devotion,  to  express  our  gratitude 
for  what  is  given  us,  to  pass  along  and  fix  its  inspira- 
tion in  permanent  form.  One  suspects  the  genuineness 
of  any  affection  that  does  not  issue  in  work.  **If  ye 
love  me,*'  says  the  vision  at  the  heart  of  every  affec- 
tion, **keep  my  commandments,"  carry  them  out  in 
work  and  in  joy.  Every  strong  emotion  ought  to  be 
worked  off  or  worked  out  somehow,  as  William  James 
and  others  have  told  us,  —  the  emotion  of  love  above 
all.  '*  Do  you  love  your  country?  Well,  then,  what  work 
are  you  doing  for  it?"  You  say  that  you  care  for 
poetry.  "  Did  you  ever  master  any  or  learn  it  by  heart? 
If  not,  your  head,  not  your  heart,  is  in  it." 

When  love  springs  up  between  people  who  have  not 
known  hard  work  their  union  lacks  something  that 
labor  would  have  taught  them.  Such  an  affection  lacks 
the  patience,  the  long  foresight,  and  tenacious  memory 
which  work  trains,  while  in  the  process  it  knocks  some 
of  the  nonsense  out  of  us.  So  work  teaches  us  to  love. 

On  the  other  hand,  love  teaches  us  how  and  why 
to  work.  To  attach  one's  self  to  a  tcisk  **for  better,  for 
worse  "  may  seem  impossibly  quixotic  and  barren  unless 
one  is  already  learning  through  love  in  marriage  that 
total  commitment  is  a  joy  which  makes  all  half-hearted 
and  temporary  contracts  look  cheap. 


ALL  TOGETHER  335 

In  the  love  of  those  who  cannot  play  one  suspects 
no  lack  of  fidelity.  Fruitlessness  is  a  more'probable  fault. 
Play  gives  us  the  rest,  change,  fresh  surfaces,  new 
lights,  and  tastes  by  which  to  keep  our  affections  fruit- 
ful. Play  and  the  renewing  of  our  minds  and  bodies  by 
beauty,  as  well  as  by  worship,  make  our  love  creative. 
The  minor  art  of  humor  is  especially  quickening  and 
restorative.  Until  we  can  laugh  at  each  other  as  well  as 
with  each  other,  our  love  is  vulnerable.  It  lacks  the 
comradeship  and  equanimity  that  even  shallow  ac- 
quaintances may  possess.  It  is  topheavy. 

Work,  love,  and  play  make  a  strong  team  together. 
They  brace  and  re  enforce  each  other.  Yet  they  all  leave 
us  rudderless  and  unsatisfied  without  prayer.  They 
can  attain  creative  power  only  in  worship,  which  —  in- 
choate or  full  formed  —  is  the  source  of  all  originality, 
because  it  sends  us  to  our  origin.  The  harder  we  work 
and  play  and  the  more  intensely  we  devote  ourselves 
to  whomever  and  whatever  we  love,  the  more  press- 
ing is  our  need  for  reorienting,  recommiting,  refresh- 
ing ourselves  in  an  appeal  to  God. 

Yet  worship  is  itself  refreshed  and  supported  by 
daily  life.  One  mistrusts  the  sincerity  of  all  religious 
expression  by  those  whose  lives  do  not  furnish  a  large 
proportion  of  performance  to  a  relatively  small  amount 
of  prayerful  pledge  or  petition.  For  religious  expression 
is  our  superlative,  and  becomes  cheap  and  weak  unless 
through  stored  and  gathered  efforts  we  earn  our  right 


336  WHAT  MEN  LIVE  BY 

to  use  it.  The  most  religious  people  are  not  those  who 
talk  and  write  the  most  about  God,  but  those  who  best 
prove  their  love  in  faithful  performance  of  what  they 
believe  to  be  his  will. 

Each  of  the  foods  by  which  our  spirit  lives  makes  us 
hungry  for  the  rest.  We  may  ignore  or  misinterpret  the 
desire,  but  unless  it  is  satisfied,  we  shrivel.  Each  of  the 
four  languages  in  which  we  may  talk  with  our  neighbor, 
the  world,  falls  on  deaf  ears  and  fails  of  response  unless  it 
is  spoken  with  creativeness,  with  symbolism,  and  with 
loyalty  to  a  central  motive.  Work  falls  flat,  play  and 
art  become  sterile,  love  and  worship  become  conven- 
tional, unless  there  is  originality,  personal  creation  in 
each.  I  must  do  my  job  in  my  own  way,  find  an  in- 
dividual outlet  in  the  symbols  of  art  or  game,  and  an 
individual  answer  in  love  and  prayer  if  I  am  to  feel  at 
home  in  the  world.  Yet  this  individual  note  is  no  cry 
in  the  void  because  it  claims  brotherhood  with  all 
future  and  distant  notes. 

By  originality  and  by  symbolism,  then,  the  home  of 
our  spirit  is  consecrated,  but  still  more  truly,  perhaps, 
by  our  free  and  final  allegiance.  Our  will  is  needed  to 
invest  the  world  with  its  own  divinity.  We  hoist  a  flag 
and  take  possession  once  for  all  with  a  sort  of  "cosmic 
patriotism,"  grateful  for  our  escape  from  chaos  and 
the  dark. 

THE  END 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Addams,  Jane,  6i,  90,  167. 
Andersen,  Hans  Christian,  280. 
Arequipa,  75. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  103. 
Arts,  loi. 

fine,  107.  I 

minor,  108,  115. 

popular^  107,  III. 

Briggs,  Le  Baron  R.,  5. 
Brown,  Dr.  Philip  King,  75. 
Browning,  Robert,  195. 
Burgess,  Gelett,  60. 
Business,  62. 

Cabot,  Ella  Lyman,  279,  281. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  55. 

Chastity,  227-30. 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  52,   119,  201, 

256. 
Children,  93,  97. 
Choice,  206,  222,  244. 
Christ,  184,  207,  302,  308. 
and  forgiveness,  183. 
Christianity,  264. 
Commercialism,  38. 
Communion,  314. 
Comradeship,  167-80. 
Confession,  298. 

Davidson,  T.,  38. 
Dickinson,  Emily,  149. 
Disenthrallment,  282. 
DriscoU,  D.,  21. 
Drudgery,  4,  6. 

Education,  6,  155,  194. 

medical,  79-80. 
Ehrlich,  Paul,  327. 
Elemental,  the,  167. 
Eliot;  C.  W.,  21. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  203,  213,  269,  282, 
309. 

Faith,  7,  202,  234. 
Fatigue,  spiritual,  271-73. 
Ferguson,  Charles,  50. 


Forgiveness,  256,  316. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  318. 
Frankness,  223. 
Freud,  S.,  298. 
Froebel,  98. 

Games,  130-53. 
Genius,  63. 
Give-and-take,  117-29,  326. 

in  adventure,  123. 

games,  122,  134. 

love,  232-35. 

oratory,  123. 

religion,  128. 

science,  327. 
God,  332. 

love  of,  185. 

service  of,  l6l. 
Goethe,  219. 
Grace,  divine,  60,  64. 
Gratitude,  76-78,  311. 
Groos,  Karl,  96,  125. 
Growth,  239. 

Halos,  70. 

Hocking,  W.  E.,  271,  273,  274,  315, 

Humor,  151. 

Humor  and  good-humor,  108. 

Huysmans,  125. 

Idleness,  13. 

Idolatry,  221. 

Impersonality  and  love,  199, 210-1& 

Impersonation,  63,  142-50. 

in  love,  145. 

morality,  147. 

play,  142. 

work,  143. 

James,  William,  5,  66,  68,  334. 
Jealousy,  179,  221. 
Jewels,  1 12-16. 

Knowledge,  172. 
Kostlin,  126. 

Lamb,  Charles,  173. 


340 


INDEX 


Laughter,  233,  335. 

Lee,  G.  S.,  50. 

Lee,  Joseph,  96. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  280,  314. 

Literalism,  201. 

Love,  allies  of,  167-80. 

consecration  of,  196. 

creation  in,  191. 

impersonal,  199. 

infinite,  181-86. 

integrity  in,  219-22. 

loyalty  in,  200-09. 

mutuality  in,  232-35. 

physical  element  in,  177,  192, 
217. 

split  apart,  193. 

stupidity  in,  200. 

symbolism  in,  187-99. 

types  of,  175-80. 
Loyalty,  65-68. 

to  cosmos,  304. 
Luther,  Martin,  60. 

Martineau,  James,  6. 
Medicine,  169. 
Meredith,  George,  70-72. 
Modesty,  222-27. 
Moody,  W.  v.,  191. 
Marriage,  230,  239-64. 

bond,  250. 

choice  in,  244. 

exclusiveness  of,  242. 

forgiveness  in,  255. 

hifalutin,  262-63. 

idolatry  in,  261. 

and  possession,  247. 

security  in,  254. 

understanding  in,  259-61. 

vows  of,  188. 
Morality,  61,  157. 
Music,  61,  314. 

"Nature,"  54. 
Neurasthenia,  75. 

Orientation,  276-78. 
Originality,  62,  319-21. 
Ostwald,  W.,  62. 

Palmer,  G.  H.,  34,  289. 
Petition,  301. 

Plans  and  their  ripening,  43. 
Play,  5,  87. 

and  art,  loi,  105. 


and  health,  104. 

and  rhythm,  no,  130, 

by-products  of,  154. 

chaotic,  138. 

consecration  of,  160,  164. 
destructive,  137. 

good  and  bad,  140. 

trance  in,  130-35. 
Praise,  309. 

from  nature,  313. 
Prayer,  267-336. 

answer  to,  316-23. 

beauty  and,  287. 

and  communion,  314. 

conditional  element  in,  30a. 

disenthrallment  in,  282. 

Du  Manner  on,  268. 

Emerson  on,  269,  282. 

and  fatigue,  271. 

fulfilment  in,  274. 

forgetfulness  and,  279. 

and  forgiveness,  317. 

and  gratitude,  311. 

W.  E.  Hocking  on,  271,  273, 
274. 

hunger  for,  267. 

joy  and,  289. 

justification  of,  315. 

orientation  in,  276-78. 

originality  from,  319-21. 

and  praise,  309. 

and  repentance,  318. 

solitude  and,  293.  4 

sorrow  and,  287. 

and  truth-seeking,  305. 

unfashionable,  268. 

wonder  in,  284. 

Recognition,  art  of,  118. 
Recollection,  279. 
Repentance  and  prayer,  318. 
Romance,  236-38, 
Royce,  Josiah,  329. 

Sacrament,  198. 
Sacrifice  in  art,  245. 
Satiety,  257. 
Schauffler,  R.  H.,  126. 
Science,  62,  67. 
Secularity,  196. 
Self-government,  l6l. 
Sentimentalism,  216. 
Seriousness,  89-97, 
Service,  78. 


INDEX 


341 


Shakespeare,  William,  204. 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  90,  167,  197,  236,  239. 

Socialism,  26. 

Solitude  and  prayer,  293. 

Sport,  good,  156. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  171,  200. 

Success,  81. 

Suggestion,  psychotherapeutic,  204. 

Swedenborg,  E.,  214. 

Symbolism,  142,  161. 

in  affection,  187-99. 

good  and  bad,  189. 

physical,  190. 

Tschaikowsky,  Peter  1.,  61. 
Theotropism,  290,  295. 
Thompson,  Francis,  180. 
Tolstoy,  L.,  14,  44,  45,  69,  171. 

Unconsciousness,  19. 

Victory,  155. 

Wagner,  Richard,  171. 
War,  moral  equivalents,  5. 
Wolcott,  Roger,  94. 
Wonder  and  prayer,  284. 


Work,  4-87. 

and  the  amateur,  23. 

and  anarchy,  66. 

and  its  boss,  31. 

and  its  companionship,  36. 

and  courage,  17. 

and  thecrude,  28, 40, 44, 50, 58. 

defined,  4,  99. 

and  discouragement,  15. 

and  habit,  li. 

joy  of,  21. 

and  loyalty,  65. 

manual  and  mental,  41-49. 

monotony  of,  29,  32. 

motive  for,  8-10. 

and  its  product,  32. 

psychical  standards  of,  27,  37, 

and  its  radiations,  59^4. 

and  religion,  84-85. 

and  its  reward,  73-85. 

and  specialism,  34. 

and  talk,  52. 

and  our  title,  34. 

and  usefulness,  74-79. 
Worry,  18. 
Worship,  267-336. 

(See  also  Prayer.) 


BOOKS  BY  RICHARD  C.  CABOT,  M.R 


The  Christian  Approach  to  Social  Morality 

National  Board  of  Young  Women's  Christian  Associations,  1913, 
600  Lexington  Ave.,  New  York  City 

Differential  Diagnosis 

W.  B.  Saunders  Company,  Philadelphia.  Two  editions,  191 1 .. 
1912 

Social  Service  and  the  Art  of  Healing 

Moffat,  Yard  &  Co.,  New  York,  1909 

Psychotherapy  and  its  Relation  to  Religion 

Moffat,  Yard  &  Co.,  New  York,  1908 

Case  Teaching  in  Medicine 

W.  M.  Leonard,  Boston.   Two  editions,  1906-1912 

Physical  Diagnosis 

William  Wood  &  Co.,  New  York.    Five  editions,  1901-1912 

Serum  Diagnosis  of  Disease 

William  Wood  &  Co.,  New  York,  1899 

Clinical  Examination  of  the  Blood 

William  Wood  &  Co.,  New  York.  Five  editions,  1896-1^4 


»T  43      1 0 


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